@simsa03 i really can't remember what bad things were said, but i remember that you said what you thought was true and right, seemingly without regard to authority, personal gain or popularity. i respect that a lot. i know you didn't agree with me on everything, but i think it was mainly productive disagreements. i certainly also remember the massive work you did with documentation, the faq and helping newcomers. that was very important, and i think we both played a part to keep the fediverse idea alive back then.
i did sell my flat, and built a small house on wheels and started growing potatoes. it's sad that i wasn't able to keep the image sharing gnu social site quit.im online at least, but we have a blog called hafsbloggen now, where i write sometimes, in swedish.
@gnusocialjp i got burnt out with qvitter/gnu social development in 2017 and i have not followed what has happened with the fediverse at all since then. i got curious if anyone still used qvitter and found your instance. you got the server running really smoothly, and i am impressed that it works so good.
but i'm sorry to disappoint, I don't think I can be much help now. i have done almost zero software development since then. your fork on github could be considered the official qvitter repo now. i doubt i still have the skills and strength to contribute anything meaningful. maybe something small in the future.
i still believe that a non-profit decentralised social media is a important piece of the puzzle for an anti-capitalist movement to use for organising. and sure, developers will need money to be able to focus on developing and not waste their lives on wage labour.
what disappointed me was that the european left didn't care about owning the means of communication. european activists and social movements thought twitter and facebook were fine, and didn't have any interest in gnu social.
it just became to depressing for me. it seemed to me that the european anarchist left measured their success in the number of likes they got on capitalist platforms.
what i thought back then, and what i still believe, is that gnusocial needs to connect with existing anti-capitalist movements "on the ground". the network needs to do some real work, organising something material. people sharing skills to become more self sufficiant, distributing real stuff in the network, from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs. that is the spirit of free software, and free software people need to take those ethics out of the computers and apply it to the whole of society.
gnusocial needs to know what it wants, what movement it wants to be a part of. otherwise it will be co-opted.