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It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. They do it for email because due to its history, there is a very long tail of

by p-e-w 3y ago

It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. They do it for email because due to its history, there is a very long tail of small mailservers that they need to federate with to be useful, but the big email providers are all working to phase out the "open" parts, with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. The Internet is not moving towards open communication protocols, it's moving away from them.

hgs3 3y ago
> with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Ideally, a user's feed would only consist of message boards they subscribe to. Similarly, message boards could limit posting to subscribed users, approved users, paying users, or those users with a "certificate" proving their human - the latter would be akin to certificate authorities we have today who assign certificates to websites. > It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. Not to derail, but that's the capitalist's contradiction: a capitalist points to competition as a theoretical advantage of capitalism, but then in practice does everything to eliminate it.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Of course. Locking down protocols is never required. It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. You're acting as if the status quo is an unfortunate situation that can be resolved by giving service providers the necessary technologies to interoperate. The exact opposite is the case. Service providers are actively undermining open protocols (EEE). They are very much aware that federation is possible, and they do not want it.
  - hgs3 3y ago
    > It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. I agree which is why it will take a 501(c)(3) non-profit to drive the change.

by p-e-w 3y ago

hgs3 3y ago

> with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Ideally, a user's feed would only consist of message boards they subscribe to. Similarly, message boards could limit posting to subscribed users, approved users, paying users, or those users with a "certificate" proving their human - the latter would be akin to certificate authorities we have today who assign certificates to websites. > It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. Not to derail, but that's the capitalist's contradiction: a capitalist points to competition as a theoretical advantage of capitalism, but then in practice does everything to eliminate it.

p-e-w 3y ago
> There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Of course. Locking down protocols is never required. It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. You're acting as if the status quo is an unfortunate situation that can be resolved by giving service providers the necessary technologies to interoperate. The exact opposite is the case. Service providers are actively undermining open protocols (EEE). They are very much aware that federation is possible, and they do not want it.
- hgs3 3y ago
  > It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. I agree which is why it will take a 501(c)(3) non-profit to drive the change.