17 ms·
The Fediverse is an opportunity learned societies can't ignore
- xkekjrktllss 3y ago[flagged]
- keymasta 3y agoI don't understand why you would get downvotes. Maybe it's because you're making a general point, non-specific to the topic at hand (Fediverse). Or maybe it's because Capitalism is the dominant ideology around these parts (Earth). It's obvious to many, who've seen through the motive of greed, that collaboration yields more "economic" results. Economy can be a synonym for efficiency, but in modern usage is the definition of a caste system where groups exist primarily to extract the blood of those doing the real work. But people practice doublethink, equating lord-serf "economies" with effectiveness, because greed (the motive to serve ones own interests) == good, and because profit (the act of taking excess value generated, for oneself) == good. Because somehow a selfish motive makes the work legitimate, because that's how "the world works". Or because there are examples of useful work having happened under this system. Until they suffer for it many won't be able to see the problem, but luckily the vampires get more and more brazen, to the point where even people living life "the right way" have began stuggling in many cases. So when the previously-sheltered upper castes begin to bleed out into the ever-gaping maw of moloch [0], there will be change in perception. The Capitalists are insatiable (luckily [?]), which I think will eventually undo the idea. It will take more blood, and more time, but I feel it's starting to happen. All this to say, that you are not alone in your vantage. And here's Ginsberg excerpted, on what I interpret to be this exact topic (which granted, is only my personal interpretation). "Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!" [0] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl
- type0 3y agoThe same was said about open-access journals, still plenty of scientists ignore to publish in those.
- etrautmann 3y agoThat’s a bit different given the stakes and incentives.
- jdlyga 3y agoThe main issue with Fediverse is the vast majority of people don't know what it is. And I would suspect that most readers of Hacker News only know about Mastodon. The Fediverse needs the same kind of evangelical missionaries that made the free software movement such a big deal.
- pipeline_peak 3y agoFree software became successful because it rendered things mostly obsolete ie commercial Unix and proprietary compilers. Fediverse doesn’t really have anything on FAANG. It needs people to run it, who’s gonna pay them?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago> Free software became successful because it rendered things mostly obsolete ie commercial Unix and proprietary compilers. Free software became successful in as much as it reduced the cost for companies selling other things to consumers. Would Google or Facebook be viable if they had to pay Microsoft (or Sun) a license per server. Linux enabled them to have a free operating system to run all their data tracking for ads. Free software reduced the cost for Apple to develop the he software that powers iPhones and Macs. For the most part, the end user actually doesn’t use the free software, rather it is a part of something else they pay for.
- bdw5204 3y ago> For the most part, the end user actually doesn’t use the free software, rather it is a part of something else they pay for. That's surprisingly true even when the FOSS alternative is a perfectly suitable drop in replacement for a popular proprietary program. How many people pay for Microsoft Office instead of just using LibreOffice? When FOSS became more popular than the proprietary competition, it was only because the FOSS product was 10x better (think Firefox and Chrome vs Internet Explorer or VLC vs Windows Media Player and Quicktime) not because users actually chose FOSS. Another example that proves this is how the single biggest increase in Linux desktop market share was likely due to a gaming handheld called the Steam Deck that is actually a Linux laptop. Linux allows Valve to sell gaming hardware without paying license fees to Microsoft or creating their own operating system. The reality of FOSS is a far cry from the ideals of Stallman, ESR, et.al. that were the original rationale behind FOSS licenses.
- jmyeet 3y agoFederation is an example of solving an imaginary problem by creating a bunch of very real problems. Tech people care about the idea of a federated service to avoid a walled garden but this always ignore the practical implementation issues and the lack of a value proposition to users. Take Twiter as an example. It's rapidly deteriorated under Musk's stewardship [1]. Bias aside, quality is down to support a subscription models with what many now call the "blue check reply guys": low-quality replies from "verified" users being boosted when thos esame people couldn't otherwise get organic engagement. What would be the benefit to a user of federation? Federation at what level? Is it just other companies? How do you create a feed with federated content? Are you copying it between nodes? Can I, as a user, set up my own server like I theoretically can with email? How then do we police content in such a world? What about bad actors spamming as we get with POTS and email? Who enforces things like law enforcement requests and content moderation? All of those things are real problems/ Yet the value proposition for users is at best hypothetical. A service can still degrade. It can get swept away by whatever the new social network is. Will that be federated too? Most likely not because it's easier to scale that way. Twitter may well die. Who cares? It'll get replaced by something else. Federation just isn't going to happen with these philosophical arguments given all the practical problems. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-musk-ron-desantis-2024-twitter/674149/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/elon-...
- api 3y agoThe biggest problem with federation is easily visible in e-mail: the server “owns” your address and therefore moving in very hard. It’s not much better than any other silo in that way. Mastodon is a bunch of small social sites in a trenchcoat. There are ways to make identity floating and separate from the server, at least in theory, but ActivityPub (the protocol under Mastodon and many other things) does not implement anything like this.
- eropple 3y agoThis is one of the things that Bluesky's ATProto is trying to solve, and have been making steps towards it. We'll see if it gets there, but I find their thinking generally pretty persuasive.
- pipeline_peak 3y ago[flagged]
- mplewis 3y agoWhat does "blue haired people" mean?
- infotainment 3y agoGP meant Sonic the Hedgehog, of course. Gotta go fast!
- krapp 3y agoIt's a stereotype of feminist/leftist/"woke" activists who dye their hair, likely deriving from the baleful image of Zoe Quinn that lives rent free in the heads of all modern red-pilled douchenozzles.
- khaki54 3y agoWell it used to mean old ladies. In this context, he's referring to left leaning people who disproportionately dye their hair wild colors vs. conservative people.
- TMWNN 3y agoRelevant: From 4chan, hair dye's effect on female brain <https://i.redd.it/izl5ue0zmef71.jpg https://i.redd.it/izl5ue0zmef71.jpg> Also, see aposematism <https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/aposematic-hair-color https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/aposematic-hair-color>
- Eumenes 3y agoHow about not naming it the "Fediverse" .. sounds like some .gov thing nobody wants to be part of unless they have to pay taxes or register a car.
- aloisdg 3y agoAmerican take I guess?
- wolfendin 3y ago“Twitter” and “tweeting” also sounded stupid in 2007.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y agoIt was improved by adding the 'e'
- calamari4065 3y agoGod, remember how stupid the name 'tumblr' was back then?
- dannyobrien 3y agosee also Yahoo!, "Google"
- account42 3y agoStill better than all the companies named for the .io domain hack.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoHow is this relevant to avoiding boring/formal names? I missed something here.
- Centigonal 3y agoGP is saying that a good product can carry a bad name, and that opinions on what names are "bad" change over time.
- wetpaws 3y ago[dead]
- cc101 3y agoI would worry about fragmentation of learned societies and isolating scholars.
- haolez 3y agoMy opinion is that it's hard to make the Fediverse work content-wise. The Big Techs have very expensive systems to do content moderation. I (kind of) trust Instagram, or X, or whatever to prevent my daughter from seeing gore or weird porn stuff. It's hard to trust these other platforms. But I'll change my mind if good arguments come up :)
- fingidiotta 3y agoas someone who has actively gone out looking for weird porn on the fediverse, I struggled
- Obscurity4340 3y agoJust can't be done /s aha
- coldacid 3y agoyou just need to join the right instances ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- fingidiotta 3y agoany pointers? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- flagrant_taco 3y agoI assume it's better these days, but Mastodon avoided adding proper search for years because the core devs knew there was plenty of questionable content or there and making it discoverable would put many hosts at legal risk.
- Sophistifunk 3y agoThat's not at all why mastodon doesn't have search. It's all about stopping "bullying" when you post something stupid.
- 3y ago
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoThe Fediverse is something that we already tried in many different fashions and it was never mass-adopted because it doesn't have the features that people want. It's the API equivalent of people asking for iPhones while nerds keep on throwing Raspberry Pis at them and pretend that they're the same thing if you squint hard enough. It is not the same, it will never be the same, you will never get the masses to adopt it, so if you want to do the hobbyist thing go ahead. Just don't be upset when nobody gives a crap about your federated platform and you're forever 5 years from being adopted by the masses regardless of the date.
- redserk 3y agoWhat features are missing? The big barrier to adoption is people and content. Mastodon has been an okay twitter replacement with its feature set, it’s just missing people. Threads appears to have succeeded by bootstrapping their platform with major accounts, brands and popular personalities. This isn’t a thing more feature development can solve.
- anigbrowl 3y agoIt's missing people because 98% of people can't get past the 'pick an instance' stage, when it's not at all obvious why you should pick any given instance or what the repercussions will be. Imagine if you had to pick a particular node to access Facebook, or select a particular data center before you started shopping on Amazon. Consumers just want to find people and exchange a mix of public and private messages, they do not want to be bothered with the dogma of federation.
- redserk 3y agoA bit over a year ago, sure, but this is a bit incorrect in the month of December 2023. Mastodon is, by far, the most active software and both their app and site now guide you to Mastodon.social. https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/
- sleepybrett 3y ago... yup, email was a total failure.
- kromem 3y agoAfter spending a number of months on Lemmy as my primary social media, I actually think the fediverse makes one of the biggest issues of social media much worse. There's a very real and dangerous trend towards extremist positions as a result of social media bubbles. I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a result of social media driven shifts. The fediverse makes these bubbles so much worse, with servers of like minded moderation creating a trend towards groupthink as opposed to representing a variety of opinions. So while it's promising from a standpoint of shrugging off corporate driven issues in managing social media, the fragmentary nature is perhaps the opposite of what social media actually needs, which is less bubble driven optimization with regression towards extremist means and more broad exposure and interaction with regression towards the normal mean.
- inamberclad 3y agoI think this is largely moot because just about every social media site will either allow you to select your communities or algorithms will filter for you based on your behavior.
- chmod775 3y ago> I'm sure most people have noticed how large family gatherings have shifted over the last 15 years, and how some family may no longer even be invited as a result of social media driven shifts. So because of social media bubbles, people split their families into bubbles too? If even in a real life setting, where no algorithm curates who they interact with, people choose to segregate despite of family bonds, then that sounds more like a people problem than a social media problem to me. There's definitely families out there who can get together despite holding diametrically opposed political opinions, even discussing them at the dinner table without getting overly emotional about it and needing to un-invite people from later gatherings. I'd call that a normal, functioning family.
- anigbrowl 3y agoThis is normal human behavior, per Schelling. Social media has made everyone's opinions more visible to others, which often turns out to be antithetical to maintaining friendly relations.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoFolks, a perfect & ideal new way of life is not going to spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. The main issue with the fediverse is the pervasive naysaying. Merchants of FUD are abundant. They all have their "the main issue" why it's hopeless. Few bother sparing even a second to contemplate the possibility of success - however faint it is against the meteor of doom which surely is careening through the sky right at us & will obliterate us all momentarily that they see. There's so many criticisms & critiques, and so much lowly & pervasive nattering of fediverse & alternatives. I think though that what's important now isn't getting everything right & tackling each and every problem first. What's important now are strong solid bases for innovation. We need early adopters & innovators trying things. We need to grow our capabilities, to figure out how to iterate again, after being well served by free with surveillance systems. The nattering can be constructive, once we have a base. I think we are losening things up, greasing into fluidity capabilities that have been ossified into place by titan sized ultra-captive industry. Making the connective online space fluid again is more important than anything. We can find wins, and the titans will keep stumbling & making errors. Innovation from the edge is going to shed some blood, but it will also allow iteration & evolution, will drive future wider forms of meta-moderation that will help us all suss & grok each other in ways that these highly centralized walled gardens can never be open enough to allow. The paradigm here, of connectivity being participative and evolvable and changing: that seems like something we forgot a while ago, and in the hours of such discontent about so much being decided for us, I think the commonality should be more important than the quibbles. No one is leaping to defend the creaky status quo. We haven't figured out all the safeguards and onroading we need to get to the world scale that the titans are at now, but it sure seems to me like we have some viable starting places to work from now. We can iterate and change, socially direct ourselves, and that hope for iteration and ownership is what is at stake here. Scant criticism is on offer that has constructive alternatives, offers any rays of hope.
- intended 3y agoThe issue used to be the tech. Today the issue for social media is curation, I.e. moderation. Dreams of that freewheeling intellectual market place were inspiring. However, reality trumps fiction. Results trump theory. Success creates Business models.
- zoogeny 3y agoThis is a very interesting concept and one I think most comments here are missing. This isn't a question as to why Mastodon (or "Fediverse") has yet to catch on in the wider public. It is more a question as to why scholarly societies are still organized around paid journals. I think the answer to that isn't inertia or greed. I would argue that the tools of federation aren't necessarily suitable to that specific problem. There is a difference between tweets and feeds compared to peer-reviewed papers in magazine-like journals. That is, Mastodon does solve a kind of problem that is related to closed groups of individuals collaborating on a moderated topic. And it allows those closed groups to broadcast their work into a network and to selectively include elements from outside networks. You could probably use those raw tools to create something that might sort of work for scholarly societies. But it does feel a bit like trying to shape the problem to fit the solution (put another way, if you have a nice new shiny hammer, suddenly a lot of problems start to look like nails). I think the article is trying to suggest that federation is a tool that is flexible enough to fill that role, but I believe a significant amount of infrastructure would need to be built on top of federation to achieve such a role. And also, a significant culture and process change would have to take place within academia. Federation might be a part of a solution to the problem, but no where near the whole solution.
- justinpombrio 3y agoDon't conflate peer review with paid journals, they're very different things. The money received by paid journals doesn't go to the reviewers. The reviewers are mostly professors who have their own funding. I reviewed a paper recently; I certainly didn't get paid for it! Some disciplines are switching to open access journals, meaning that anyone can read the articles for free, and there's no big publisher sucking up tons of money. But there's still peer review.
- LasEspuelas 3y agoIn my experience open access still includes a big publisher sucking up tons of money. It is just money paid up front by authors. Do you have an example of open access were that is not the case?
- kaffeeringe 3y agoMastodon isn't for everybody just like Twitter never was for everybody. Millions of users joined Twitter and silently left, because they didn't know what to make of it. But the Fediverse could certainly offer services that fit the needs of the sciences. Wordpress can be connected to the Fediverse. There are other, more long form services.
- jojobas 3y agoPeople are not led by learned individuals, they do whatever "influencers" (tell them to) do. In a world influenced by Taylor Swift and Cardi B I'd bet anything federated will lose to a tiktok of the day every time.
- OfSanguineFire 3y agoMy concern with scholarship on the fediverse would be clash between academic cultures, and potential exclusion. Some fields of the humanities in some parts of the world do not have the absorbing interest in race/sexuality/gender/power that North American and Western European academia does; they look at those developments with bemusement or horror, and frequently complain about how funding gets tied to using Westerners’ magic words instead of things they feel relevant in their context. The mainstream federated servers of the fediverse largely draw from those same North American or Western European circles. It is very common to see founding members of Mastodon claim that their own subculture’s values and concerns ought to be upheld across the fediverse even as new members sign up, and never diluted. How welcoming can the fediverse therefore be to academics from elsewhere with different concerns and views?
- crimsoneer 3y agoI mean, surely federalised social media is the solution rather than the problem here. If you think some monolithic worldview is challenging to welcome new people, then being able to quickly create a new instance for your friends and like minded colleagues seems like a win (hence why the tech behind Mastodon is also being Truth social etc)
- akvadrako 3y agoDistributed, fully-decentralized is the solution, not federated. Each person should have full control over who they follow, without relying on the whims of server admins.
- piaste 3y agoThis is a truly bizarre critique, because it seems completely backwards in every respect. The ability to not be beholden to the preferences of whoever runs a fedi server is, in fact, the #1 selling point of federated network in the first place. And all other alternatives are far worse in that specific aspect you bring. There is a very mild barrier to running your own Mastodon/PeerTube/etc. instance (you don't even have to self-host, you can get one on Masto.host or similar services). But it is flat-out impossible to run your own Twitter or Youtube or Discord. And most cloud services adhere strictly not just to Western cultural norms, but specifically to Bay Area cultural norms, which are even more narrow.
- zby 3y agoFediverse has a wrong model of news aggregation - this has been talked here many times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36549218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36549218 My take is that it conflates what is civil and what is on topic.
- nojvek 3y agoI don't the answer to rent-seeking publishers is Mastodon. It's sites like Arxiv and libgen. Mastadon is the answer to Twitter. In general, I think a lot about hyper efficient marketplace companies. Like craigslist which is still have less than 50 employees. Suppose we had a goal to connect consumer to producer and have the lowest fees, provide a well ranked marketplace that consumers and producers could trust. 1% fee w a $100 cap. A super app like WeChat - Umbrella to Uber, AirBnB, Expedia, MLS, Amazon. With rise of AI, it could be possible. "The most efficient way to provide for human wants"