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1. Mikko Alasaarela :equel: (alasaarela@equel.social)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 09:49:02 JST Mikko Alasaarela :equel:

   I see a lot of discussion about the fear that corporations and VCs will take over the #fediverse.

   The thing is, #Mastodon going mainstream will require a lot of capital and development of new products and innovations for this ecosystem.

   And that is perfectly ok, as long as everyone connects to the protocol, and the protocol itself stays away from the hands of oligarchs.

   If you prefer your local coop to host your account instead of Mozilla, Vivaldi or some other larger entity, that's great. But it's also totally fine that those bigger players are offering theirs, because it pulls in a lot of new members to this ecosystem.

   The main corporate takeover attack vector to the Mastodon ecosystem will not be the servers, but the mobile app. It is possible that one VC-backed mobile app becomes the single winner with most Mastodon users accessing the ecosystem with that. The owner of such an app will wield a lot of power over all servers and service providers in the ecosystem.

   Algorithmic feeds and fuzzy search are both inevitable mainstream features as the ecosystem grows. People need those to be able to use the platform effectively.

   This is fine too, as long as there's no single algorithm dominating, and especially if the algorithms are built transparently with users being able to choose their own algorithm.

   There are going to be many points of contention as the ecosystem grows, but for the sake of humanity, let's allow decentralization of social media to happen. Let's also allow VC-backed startups to flourish building services for all of us.

   We have the momentum now, and it is a rare chance to take back the power from corporate overlords, and rebuild the social internet as an open platform for innovation!

   Would you agree?

   • Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Seirdy (seirdy@pleroma.envs.net)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 09:48:42 JST Seirdy

     in reply to

     @alasaarela This isn’t Silicon Valley. We’re not trying to “innovate” or “scale” or “go mainstream”. We’re avoiding that culture. Granted, most of us aren’t opposed to the idea of going mainstream, but we’re not chasing that goal for its own end.

     The kind of growth I’m interested in is being welcoming to new marginalized users (e.g. those from BIPoC, neurodiverse, and queer communities). Venture capital, however, chases growth for a return on investment; this isn’t guaranteed to be in alignment with the extant community’s goals, and will likely come in conflict with time. The history of every “successful” VC-backed social media platform to date (Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc) says as much.

     The protocols are open; you’re free to do what you will. I only ask that you loudly announce all instances run by people subscribing to your vision whenever you find them, so we can contain the spread.

     POSSE note from https://seirdy.one/notes/2023/01/04/against-chasing-growth/

   • Ardainian Hebrew Israelite (ardainianright@detroitriotcity.com)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jan-2023 11:47:39 JST Ardainian Hebrew Israelite

     in reply to

     • Seirdy
     @Seirdy @alasaarela Everyone who identifies as neurodiverse/queer is an insufferable faggot who deserves to be bullied off this and every other platform.