FediTips has moved!
I don't think people are realising the danger the Fediverse is in.
The only thing stopping corporations and VCs taking over this place is that the Fediverse is spread out on many different servers, which makes it very difficult to purchase.
If most of the Fediverse ends up on mastodon.social, which is now a strong possibility, there will be nothing to stop most of it being sold to Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever.
The bigger mastodon.social becomes, the more likely a buyout is to happen.
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FediTips has moved!
Here's what Eugen Rochko's Mastodon gGmbH organisation now controls:
-The Mastodon server software (though the current version is FOSS)
-The mastodon.social server, which has 1 in 7 of all Fediverse users
-The official Mastodon apps, now telling people to just sign up on mastodon.social
-The official website at joinmastodon.org
-The trademark for the word "mastodon", which lets them dictate terms to any server which uses it
This is a tempting package for any potential buyers.
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FediTips has moved!
The trademark alone gives Mastodon gGmbH huge power, it lets them tell any server using the word "mastodon" in its domain name what software or forks it can use.
And it's getting worse. Mastodon gGmbH is now making official apps which direct people to sign up on mastodon.social instead of a random trusted server or choice of trusted servers.
The more people sign up on mastodon.social, the more tempting Mastodon gGmbH becomes as a takeover target.
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FediTips has moved!
With all that in mind, here's a suggestion:
➡️ *IF* mastodon.social becomes more than 50% of the Fediverse, either by total users or monthly active users, the rest of us should defederate it.
Sticking with mastodon.social because "that's where the people are" is pointless. Centralised growth will simply cause the governance problems we've seen on Twitter and Facebook to be replicated on here.
Growth has to be decentralised in order to protect the independence of all Fedi servers.
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Experiencer Team ?️ :verified:
@feditips I didn't realise there were that many people on mastodon.social! Pretty sure it's under 100K users here on mstdn.social thankfully.
I have a Calckey backup which has something like 700 or 800 users if something ever happens though.
Kevin Karhan :verified:
@feditips And this should all not be the case.
Granted, #ActivityPub as a #MultiVendor / #MultiProvider - #Standard will outlive #Mastodon anyway, just as #HTML & #JavaScript outlived #Mosaic & #Netscape.
At most Mastodon will die out like #ActiveX, #InternetExplorer & #Twitter nowadays and #Windows ["Server"] in the future...
🏳️ Ben Soule :coffefied:
Good thing an alarm has finally been rung!
Jeff
@feditips The bigger mastodon.social becomes, the more people are likely to use it.
Like it or not, most users don't care about the theoretical implications of using a technology; they care about the practical ones.
If users are afraid of centralization, then they can choose any other server.
If they don't care, then directing them to one main server is an excellent solution.
The people who disagree with this are just staunchly against centralization of any kind and want everyone to be like them
CharlieBleu
@feditips
People go where they want to go. It’s our choice for our reasons.
What I hear in your statement resonates not of growth based upon freedom of choice; but rather, intimates manipulation and control. It’ll sort itself out as it will; and that, as I see it, is the whole point.
I see your point, but man things sure can get a bit paradoxical. Ain’t that just like life?
✌️
Juggling With Eggs
@feditips ok so I’m with mastodon.social just because after much delay, trial and error I managed to create an account there. I haven’t a clue about how to change instances and given the time it took to get going and that I’ve invested in getting settled here, I don’t want to be told ‘start again’ just because you perceive my instance to be ‘too popular’. I can’t be the only one in this position?
dorkboycomics
@feditips This seems a bit arbitrary. Defederating based on size rather than actual violations seems counter to the purpose of decentralization, and more isolating to the smaller servers without true indictments.
Defederating based on actual purchases/takeovers might be warranted if that were to happen, but just being able to easily move to another server is something that exists today that does not in the case of Twitter, etc.
GLW
@feditips
Thanks. Good points.
Us “regular users” may need instructions on how to migrate off of mastodon social.
Kevin Karhan :verified:
@feditips +9001%
just like with #Cryptocurrencies the #Fediverse should guard itself agaist "#51PercentAttack|s"...
Kevin Karhan :verified:
@feditips true, true.
Yohan Yukiya Seseㆍ사요한・謝雪矢
@feditips Hence, we should #SpreadFediverse and constantly inform everyone that there is a world out there.
But how can we make people explore the fediverse when:
1. People falsely assume that #Mastodon is the #Fediverse / #ActivityPub. That's like saying #China is #Asia.
2. When something is lacking in Mastodon, people assume it is the Fediverse / ActivityPub that is lacking. That is like saying chicken is the worst food because you've tasted McDonald's chicken, when there #Jollibee's #ChickenJoy is tastier and juicier.
There are now even people who praise a non-fediverse network based on those false assumptions above. They have time to research a non-fediverse network, but doesn't have the time to do their due diligence about the Fediverse; all because they falsely assumed they've seen everything.
It's like moving to a new country, settling in a new home, exploring their new neighbourhood, and then assumed that village they're in is a representation of the entire country.
If we can make people see, and make people explore their own “city” and “country”, then maybe, just maybe, the distribution of people in the fediverse will start to balance between the different forks, projects, and instances. It won't happen overnight, but maybe we can plant the seeds.
tallship
For starters 'Fedi.Tips', I don't do #hellthreads, but just going by the timbre of your post I'm responding to here, I gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised.
I rarely boost anything of yours coz it usually sounds like you're a masto cheerleader instead of a Fediverse advocate - no offense, just my personal observation.
Second - it's exactly what Eugen wanted for his "Brand", and he's caused enormous damage by creating a deprecated, legacy monolithic silo.
𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚊
Cardboard Robot
@feditips When I first joined I stumbled on an infographic of server sizes as circles of various sizes and it was helpful because to me this is a basically a 3 bears Goldilocks decision. Is there a current version of that somewhere?
Auntie Denier
@feditips Helpful tip—been planning to move to a smaller instance but have feared the effort involved. Will try to do it in the next few weeks!
peterbraet
@feditips I'd leave to another instance if mastodon.social ever becomes corporate business controlled.
FediTips has moved!
p.s. Today I've had several people telling me that VCs would never make an offer for Mastodon gGmbH. But according to Eugen, "more than five" offers have already been made.
Here's what Eugen said in an interview with the Financial Times in December 2022:
"Rochko told the FT he had received offers from more than five US-based (venture capital) investors to invest 'hundreds of thousands of dollars' in backing the product, following its fast growth."
https://www.ft.com/content/de808736-2e05-4c3b-a53c-55b170ae9efd (paywalled)
AnneFromMtka
@feditips this 🧵 is a good heads up on the VC issue (threat).
This is what I’m here for: “Mastodon’s independence, and the choice of moderation styles across its servers, [are] part of its attraction”. I’m on Spoutible 🐳, too, trying out both as alternatives to 🐦. I like both, but there’s definitely a positive creative and independent vibe here that is different from a monolithic “central server”.
otheorange_tag
@feditips Maybe we need a trigger, bigger than x%, split until less than y%?
Connected Dots
This is a long time issue:. The left leaning digital, radio, TV, media has never been a profit center. This contrasted with RW media, from 1990s has been an emerging, evolving, growth industry.
2004, I proposed project institute to create the draw of people to common reality baseline, using various methods, capacity builders, etc.
Luigi de Guzman
@youronlyone @feditips counterpoint: what I can see is pretty limited, and seeing anything else is difficult by design. Normies do not care about how hard it is for the system to be taken over. The barrier to entry is presently too high to attract the non-enthusiasts that actually say interesting/funny stuff.
Community seems to be mostly people already invested in #fediverse rather than people who are only incidentally using the fediverse to create. Big difference
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