Evan Prodromou
Wow, surprising results.
I'm a strong yes. First, I think any way that we can get more people on the fediverse is good. The more people that are here, the more likelihood that you can connect to people you care about on an open social network.
It's not my problem to make business cases for mobile phone service providers, but I think there's a chance to shift their service more to the centre of their customers' attention.
Evan Prodromou
@colo_lee Good question! I think a mobile phone service provider usually handles Internet service for customers, so they're more aligned with a fediverse account. Many ISPs give free email addresses to customers, which feels analogous.
But, I'm 100% cool with other companies providing fediverse accounts. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
I like post office and municipality, btw!
Lee Fife
@evan asking mobile providers to give a fediverse account automatically seems pretty arbitrary. Why should I want them to do it anymore than my grocery store along with a loyalty card? Or my bank? Or the electric utility?
Something like the post office or my local municipality would make more sense to me.
Not that my cell telco shouldn't do this, but I don't see the value prop for either cell subscribers or the company themselves.
Evan Prodromou
@brion @colo_lee I agree. It's something we're working on at the SocialCG; hopefully we'll have some ideas on how to move content when you move your account. This, and more bring-your-own-domain implementations, should help with lock-in.
Brion Vibber :blobcatcoffee:
@evan @colo_lee those free accounts are lock-in mechanisms to make it harder to switch ISPs :)
(fedi is _slightly_ better than email in account portability with the migration system, but only slightly. you still have to update any external links, business cards, etc and you lose your entire posting history including DMs)
Evan Prodromou
Joe McLaughlin
@evan I'm also a strong yes, and as one of the relatively few people that actually use @Google Fi for phone service, think that it's a real opportunity for them to differentiate themselves from other phone service providers. Generally, Google should really jump in on ActivityPub support as a way to get back into the social network space. And Google Cloud could provide an easy way for ordinary folks to host their own Mastodon, etc instances.
Renaud Chaput
@evan from my experience, we should not tie someone’s online identity with their ISP. This is far too problematic when you want to switch ISP.
We truee that with emails, did not work well at all.
Evan Prodromou
@renchap changing accounts on the fediverse is a lot easier than changing email accounts, though!
silverwizard
Brion Vibber :blobcatcoffee:
@evan (why's it surprising? we've spent decades trying to get *out* from under the thumb of big ISPs and mobile phone providers, I can't imagine why we'd want to dive back into their waiting EEE arms)
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