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1. Thomas 🔭🕹️ (thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 16:35:46 JST Thomas 🔭🕹️

   Periodic reminder of this 1999 review of Google

   • Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 16:35:45 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     @thomasfuchs Maybe one day we’ll learn not to reward venture-capital funded startups with a visit no matter what form they initially present themselves as.

   • Charliebrownau (charliebrownau@pieville.net)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 19:25:25 JST Charliebrownau

     in reply to

     @thomasfuchs It was always a spying and goverment honey trap

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 20:57:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Der nichtbinäre grüne Mann
     • Manoj

     @almaember @manoj @thomasfuchs Yep

   • Der nichtbinäre grüne Mann (almaember@polyglot.city)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 20:57:47 JST Der nichtbinäre grüne Mann

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Manoj

     @manoj @aral @thomasfuchs You answered your own question — they want quick money and that's it.

     There's nothing more to it. It's just capitalism being capitalism.

   • Manoj (manoj@masto.ai)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Feb-2023 20:57:48 JST Manoj

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan

     @aral @thomasfuchs I don’t understand why the need for hyper growth among VC-backed ventures. Nobody seems to be in it for the long run. They just want to make fast money and exit. The business does not really matter - it’s just a means to feed the greed.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 16:08:10 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • anedroid
     • Arne Babenhauserheide
     • Manoj

     @anedroid @ArneBab @manoj @thomasfuchs If you own the copyright, you can license it under whatever you like at any time. You can’t retroactively apply it to existing code released under AGPL, though. And you can’t apply it to code you do not own the copyright for (eg., contributions of others, unless they have specifically granted you the right via contract).

   • anedroid (anedroid@mstdn.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 16:08:11 JST anedroid

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Arne Babenhauserheide
     • Manoj

     @ArneBab @manoj @aral @thomasfuchs You mean, I can't change the license?

   • Arne Babenhauserheide (arnebab@rollenspiel.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 16:08:12 JST Arne Babenhauserheide

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Manoj

     @manoj "we" (as society) don’t really need that. VC-funding companies is the creation of golden chains as a core organization structure of society.

     They will always be faster and more polished and more whatever-you-look-at-today-that-does-not-prevent-a-cashout (enshittification) than their non-money-crammed competitors.

     And VC-funding is a constant temptation.

     One part to disincentivize that may be the AGPL: protect your project against the time when *you* might fail.
     @aral @thomasfuchs

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 17:59:06 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @miklo @thomasfuchs Mozilla is a for-profit Silicon Valley tech company that exists through the half a billion dollars or so it gets every year by enabling surveillance capitalists like Google to track people in their browser. This is hardly surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention in the past decade.

     #mozilla #ventureCapital #vc #BigTech #SiliconValley #surveillanceCapitalism #capitalism

   • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛 (miklo@soc.citizen4.eu)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 17:59:31 JST MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     @aral @thomasfuchs It only gets worse and worse. Today I read that ... #mozilla has launched its #VC fund to buy startups: mozilla.vc
     Aral Balkan repeated this.
   • Ben Francis (benfrancis@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 21:00:38 JST Ben Francis

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @aral @miklo @thomasfuchs Not quite. The for-profit Mozilla Corporation is a fully owned subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. The corporation does exist to maximise profit for its shareholders, but its only shareholder is a non-profit foundation working for the public good.

     It also only has around 1,000 employees (and 10,000+ volunteers), which hardly qualifies as "big tech" today.

     It is true most of its revenue comes from Google, but also does a lot to prevent tracking so 🤷♂️

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 21:00:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • Ben Francis

     @benfrancis The for-profit Greenzilla Corporation is a fully owned subsidiary of the non-profit Greenzilla Foundation. The corporation does exist to maximise profit for its shareholders, but its only shareholder is a non-profit foundation working for the public good.

     It is true most of its revenue comes from ExxonMobil, but also does a lot to prevent climate change so 🤷♂️

     @miklo @thomasfuchs

   • João Pedro Almeida (t3mujin@photog.social)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 21:23:58 JST João Pedro Almeida

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • AlejandroP

     @AlejandroP if you want to stick with Firefox, then LibreWolf could be an option
     @aral @miklo @thomasfuchs

   • AlejandroP (alejandrop@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 21:23:59 JST AlejandroP

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @aral @miklo @thomasfuchs I use Firefox, what alternative do you suggest??
     I mean a good usable one, I really want to ditch Mozilla completely

   • AlejandroP (alejandrop@mastodon.online)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Feb-2023 21:24:34 JST AlejandroP

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • João Pedro Almeida

     @t3mujin @aral @miklo @thomasfuchs interesting, I never heard of libreWolf before
     Will check it 👍👍

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 02:52:35 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Fabrice Desré
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • Ben Francis

     @fabrice I don’t know, Fabrice, after I’d sold the only two homes I had to fund my work over the years which is about to give us the Small Web, I didn’t have much left over to finance that.

     What did you do?

     Perhaps more importantly, instead of riding in to defend the honour of a Silicon Valley corporation, how about to start discussing how to fund such efforts from our taxes? Maintaining a browser is not something you can do in from your garage in the weekends.

     @benfrancis @miklo @thomasfuchs

   • Fabrice Desré (fabrice@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 02:52:36 JST Fabrice Desré

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • Ben Francis

     @aral @benfrancis @miklo @thomasfuchs If a tiny amount of the Mozilla-hate had been used to *actually* build alternatives, maybe the situation would be better?

     Why didn't you all pick up the work on Servo to contribute or fund it in the last couple of years for instance? Clean state, open license, no corp overlord. Is that not good enough?

     But no, instead we get the same complaints that don't move the needle.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 03:42:14 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Fabrice Desré
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • Ben Francis

     @benfrancis Yes, it is sad. If you cannot see that a half-billion-dollar Silicon Valley corporation fully funded by surveillance capitalists with a CEO that gets paid millions of dollars is not the same as an independent two-person not-for-profit, the problem’s not with me.

     Please feel free to take your interest elsewhere but know that we are also very far from being on our own either.

     Goodbye.

     @fabrice @miklo @thomasfuchs

   • Ben Francis (benfrancis@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 03:42:15 JST Ben Francis

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Fabrice Desré
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @aral @fabrice @miklo @thomasfuchs Well that's sad. I was quite interested in the Small Technology Foundation until you started crapping on other foundations with similar missions.

     If you can't see that Mozilla are the good guys (and believe me I have plenty of reasons to not like them) then I guess I wish you the best of luck trying to change the world on your own.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 03:43:56 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Open Web Advocacy
     • Fabrice Desré
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛

     @fabrice Wasting my time on Small Web?

     Fuck off, Fabrice.

     @benfrancis@mastodon.social @miklo @thomasfuchs @owa

   • Fabrice Desré (fabrice@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 16-Feb-2023 03:43:57 JST Fabrice Desré

     in reply to

     • Aral Balkan
     • Open Web Advocacy
     • MiKlo:~/citizen4.eu$💙💛
     • Ben Francis

     @aral @benfrancis @miklo @thomasfuchs

     What I did or do now is not important in this discussion (but look at https://capyloon.org in any case).

     Perfect is the enemy of good. You start the discussion with the only solution acceptable for you ("fund from taxes"), so you should know what to do right? Instead of wasting your time on Small Web, build a *group* lobbying effort.
     The @owa did a great job at something similar in a relatively short time frame.