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why is this the case? why hasn't it been the case until now? what has changed that would reverse the constant trend toward centralization?
by nyolfen 4y ago
why is this the case? why hasn't it been the case until now? what has changed that would reverse the constant trend toward centralization?
- rvz 4y agoIt is because they are very emotional and angry at a person called 'Elon Musk'. Twitter has always been a cesspool before the takeover which many here complaining about Twitter have tolerated for years and the 220M+ daily active users still remain with it. They are having to learn the hard way as to why building a very sticky network effect like Twitter from scratch is extremely difficult. Substack knew they had to bootstrap from Twitter some how, hence the links ban.
- turnsout 4y agoWell, not to get into an entire history of the internet, but centralization is actually a relatively recent phenomenon tied to "Web 2.0" and the rise of smartphones. Email and Usenet are more similar to Mastodon than Twitter. Centralization is a short term win-win, because it's easier for users, and it creates a critical mass of users to monetize. However, as we're seeing, centralization has its limits. The drive for ever-increasing profits and the impossibility of content moderation at scale is driving more and more people away from the monoliths. Sometimes people just jump ship to another centralized platform (Friendster > MySpace > Facebook > Instagram), but a lot of people seem to be peacing out of this cycle in favor of smaller communities (Mastodon, Discord, private Slacks, etc).