Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:04:32 JST Mike Masnick ✅

   Figure I should post this here as well. How I view the wider decentralized social media ecosystem. A variety of necessary experiments to figure out what will actually bring value.

   https://www.techdirt.com/2024/10/29/some-slightly-biased-thoughts-on-the-state-of-decentralized-social-media/

   • Embed this notice
     David Wall 🍥 (davidfwall@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:10:11 JST David Wall 🍥

     in reply to

     @mmasnick glad you posted here, interesting read!

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:21:59 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @mmasnick "necessary" is the lie here.

     AT Protocol is only necessary for one player: the VC-funded company that is playing a winner-take-all game.

     For everyone else, this is unnecessary and harmful.

     Which is why Bluesky is going to lose; you can't fight the whole Internet.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:31:31 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @mmasnick I hope at least as board member you can get the company to commit to a patent pledge to prevent overreacting patents from affecting the entire space.

     You need to do it now, while there is money in the bank. Companies with a short runway are more likely to try to monetize their patents, especially for acquisition.

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Darbyshire (markdarb@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:44:55 JST Mark Darbyshire

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @mmasnick This article talks about experiments in decentralised social media. Bluesky is the great experiment in fragmenting decentralised social media and splitting it into different siloes with different protocols. What we need now is a great experiment in unifying social media, preferably with a single protocol, but at the very least with seamless bridges or networks that support multiple protocols.

     Evan Prodromou repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mark Darbyshire (markdarb@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 05:44:55 JST Mark Darbyshire

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @mmasnick Users need to seamlessly connect with all their friends and communities. That is the feature that is currently missing from the great decentralisation experiment, and Bluesky has made it worse.

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Walker (tomw@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:30:08 JST Tom Walker

     in reply to

     @mmasnick Why do you think venture capitalists would put $15 million into a 'decentralised protocol'? Or to use your analogy, surely this is:

     1. Invest $15m in decentralised protocol
     2. ???
     3. Profit

     Number 2 surely needs to involve some kind of value extraction – value that is a multiple of what they put in.

   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:43:34 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan I understand your hostility here and, but honestly, find it a bit off-putting.

   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:44:56 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Troed Sångberg

     @troed you make three assumptions in that statement and I disagree with all three.

     If Bluesky goes down the enshittification path, it will die.

   • Embed this notice
     Troed Sångberg (troed@masto.sangberg.se)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:44:58 JST Troed Sångberg

     in reply to

     @mmasnick $15M Series A means Bluesky has convinced investors they can extract $150-200MUSD from a userbase of 3-4M MAU.

     That's $50 per user. There's simply no way of doing that without going down the route of enshittification - and most certainly not without staying centralized.

     Surely you know this.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:46:06 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @mmasnick It was not my intention to make you feel good about your poor choices.

   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:46:10 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @markdarb @evan bridges are great. Bluesky folks are happy with bridges. To date, the only community that seemed to get upset by bridges was... this one?

   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:47:12 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Tom Walker

     @tomw and the company has explained how it intends to build a sustainable, non-enshittifying business model. If we can't do that, the project will fail.

   • Embed this notice
     Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:49:16 JST Mike Masnick ✅

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan there are ways to disagree without being disagreeable. You know that I've supported your work and your mission.

     I'm not asking you to support mine.

     But it is a choice to be antagonistic. But, fair enough, you have made it clear I am not welcome here. I am out.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:56:21 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @mmasnick @mmasnick.bsky.social

     I do believe that you do good work and I think you have the best interests of the Internet at heart. I disagree with your conclusions but I believe in your intentions.

     I think you should re-read my post, and see whether it’s actively hostile, or just telling you something you don’t want to hear.

     Regardless, please take my request about patents to heart. I think you are in a unique position to do some good on that front.

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Walker (tomw@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 06:58:08 JST Tom Walker

     in reply to

     @mmasnick So is it a protocol, or a company?

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Darbyshire (markdarb@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 07:01:40 JST Mark Darbyshire

     in reply to

     @mmasnick I'm bridged, and even following your Bluesky account from here (thank you)! But the number of Bluesky users I can follow is miniscule. Asking people to follow a bridging account so I can follow them is hardly seamless. I have a similar frustration with Threads: having to contact friends and ask them to enable federation before I can follow them. I'm not sure what we do about the upset users you refer to, but siloes are currently trumping user experience across multiple platforms.

   • Embed this notice
     kobra (kobra_@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 07:20:54 JST kobra

     in reply to

     @mmasnick Hey thanks for sharing your thoughts, this was an interesting read!

   • Embed this notice
     Tim Chambers (tchambers@indieweb.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 13:58:27 JST Tim Chambers

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @mmasnick @markdarb @evan I do think that there are some practical things the ATProtocol folks can do to make bridging between them and AP cleaner: the very dead simplest one is change their post size to 500 characters.

     And I do think folks on the fedi allergic to bridging have plenty of means and agency to block it and only a (albeit loud) 5 percent would. Most would welcome a robust bridge to BlueSky.

   • Embed this notice
     Tim Chambers (tchambers@indieweb.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:00:44 JST Tim Chambers

     in reply to

     • Mark Darbyshire
     • hallenbeck

     @hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick

     This rings true. It was a definite subset that were riled up, but that's cool, they have every right and ability to block such bridges at will. But I agree most - to my experience 90 percent plus, welcome it.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:00:45 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Mark Darbyshire

     @markdarb @mmasnick This. Unless it's opt-out by default, it's excruciatingly painful to get people to bridge. It's hard to explain, hard to make people trust what it is, hard to contact each and every person. It's a never ending battle to try and unfork the divided community, especially as waves of new folk join Bluesky and not Mastodon. Feels like in my community, Bluesky has very much been "winner takes all" and the bridge, while a useful band-aid, doesn't actually heal the rift.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:00:45 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Mark Darbyshire

     @markdarb @mmasnick If Bluesky folk are happy with the bridge, can you make it opt-out by default? I have found most people are happy to bridge. Problem is, they just don't know to in the first place. Discovery is the problem.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:00:45 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Mark Darbyshire

     @markdarb @mmasnick I've not met anyone on Mastodon actively hostile to the bridge either. People in my circles all welcome it. I don't buy this notion there's a homongenous "fediverse" community even though it gets painted that way because of a noisy minority (I'm guessing minority) with a particular point of view.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:04:05 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Ryan Barrett
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org

     It seems logical on fedi, where different servers have different rules and governance, that some would be opt-out and some opt-in. I'd personally choose an opt-out server, but I can see why others would choose opt-in. That's kinda the point of being able to choose one's server, right?

   • Embed this notice
     Tim Chambers (tchambers@indieweb.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:04:05 JST Tim Chambers

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Ryan Barrett
     • Mark Darbyshire
     • hallenbeck

     @hallenbeck @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org

     Yes exactly this. Each server can have its own opt-in or out rules -- as long as they state it clearly.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:04:06 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Ryan Barrett
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick

     I know, I saw that. I also listened to the podcast where @mike interviewed @snarfed.org. Worth a listen: https://dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/ryan-barrett

     I meant I've personally not met anyone actively hostile to it in my circles. It seems there's a quiet majority who are ok (or indifferent) with it.

     But Mike (Masnick) said Bluesky users are fine with the bridge, so make it opt-out that side. Then explore with admins making it opt-out on selected, friendly fedi servers, too.

   • Embed this notice
     Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋 (mackuba@martianbase.net)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 14:04:07 JST Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋

     in reply to

     • Mark Darbyshire
     • hallenbeck

     @hallenbeck @markdarb @mmasnick There was a thread here https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/835 back in February, when the bridge's author announced he was preparing to launch it, with some Mastodon users saying very, very nasty things to him there…

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 15:08:10 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • bryan newbold

     @bnewbold @mmasnick

     I appreciate the Apache license protections for those who use your software; that's not enough.

     You need to make a written pledge as an organization that any patents you make on the work you do are freely licensed. Right now, you're putting everyone in the space at risk. We don't know if you're going to overreach and patent distributed social networking, or user profiles, or whatever.

     Fortunately, you have one of the smartest patent defenders on the planet on your board.

   • Embed this notice
     bryan newbold (bnewbold@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 15:08:11 JST bryan newbold

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @mmasnick Evan, as you and I have discussed directly in the past, all of the atproto specifications and core implementations are under free and open licenses. Specifically, MIT and Apache 2.0 dual-licensing, with Apache 2.0 providing patent protection. Furthermore, Patents have public record, and anybody can confirm we have not filed for any.

     Neither you nor I are lawyers, but I don't think there are any grounds to spread fear/uncertainty/doubt about atproto and patents.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 15:40:11 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • bryan newbold

     @bnewbold @mmasnick also, thank you so much for addressing my concerns directly instead of telling me what a bad person I am for having them.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 16:22:47 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • bryan newbold

     @bnewbold @mmasnick I am so glad you take it as seriously as I do!

     Like I said, it'd be a real relief to see a patent pledge from the corporation itself. Mike knows a lot about this topic and can help push it through at the board level.

   • Embed this notice
     bryan newbold (bnewbold@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 16:22:48 JST bryan newbold

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @mmasnick when you raised patent concerns to me in person on March 2024, I took them very seriously! which is why I reached out and had a direct call with you about your concerns that same month.

     "Right now, you're putting everyone in the space at risk" is a strong statement and accusation of wrong doing on our behalf.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 16:53:43 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • bryan newbold

     @bnewbold @mmasnick I agree! You've been expressing that intention for a while, without a lot of action. And only for part of your stack.

     You also have a whole set of new investors. A patent pledge from the corporation is the best way to show that the whole org is aligned on this.

   • Embed this notice
     bryan newbold (bnewbold@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 30-Oct-2024 16:53:45 JST bryan newbold

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan @mmasnick I would be more than happy to talk with folks from SWF or W3C if they share this specific concern about Bluesky exploiting patents on social web technology, and what we can do to allay those concerns.

     The norm in this space is to participate in a standards body, and it remains our intention to do so.

   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 31-Oct-2024 08:11:11 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Tim Chambers
     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Ryan Barrett
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @tchambers @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org

     Would be useful to have standardised "nutrition information" for decentralised servers. Part of the problem with opt-out/opt-in and other choices is that users aren't even aware there's a choice to be conscious of. Standardised labelling gives consumers a consistent set of accessible reminders of ingredients they might want/need to pay attention to. Same principle could apply to social media.

     https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/check-the-label

   • Embed this notice
     Ryan Barrett (snarfed.org@fed.brid.gy)'s status on Thursday, 31-Oct-2024 08:11:11 JST Ryan Barrett

     in reply to

     • Tim Chambers
     • Chris Messina
     • Evan Prodromou
     • bryan newbold
     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Jaz (IFTAS)
     • The Nexus of Privacy
     • Mark Darbyshire
     • hallenbeck

     @tchambers @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @hallenbeck @evan @thenexusofprivacy @jaz @chrismessina @bnewbold

     Good conversation everyone! Thanks for the support. I'm all for instances and networks making their own decisions on bridge opt-in vs opt-out too.

     There's another angle here though: who should make these kinds of decisions on the tools' side, eg for Bridgy Fed itself? And beyond that, if we want to consider defaulting them more toward the opt-out, "big fedi" direction – pardon the metaphor, thanks Evan! – that starts to shift them away from fun useful side projects and more toward core social web infrastructure.

     To do that right, they need real structure, organization, and governance. That's at the core of my discomfort so far with considering opt-out. We definitely could put real, grown-up structure in place around Bridgy Fed to turn it into sustainable infrastructure and support that kind of decision. But we (I) haven't yet.

     I need to write this up more thoroughly; I'll do that soon. Thanks again for the thoughts so far.

     Tim Chambers repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     hallenbeck (hallenbeck@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 31-Oct-2024 08:11:12 JST hallenbeck

     in reply to

     • Tim Chambers
     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Ryan Barrett
     • Mark Darbyshire

     @tchambers @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @snarfed.org

     Exactly that 💯

   • Embed this notice
     Melvin Carvalho (melvincarvalho@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 31-Oct-2024 08:29:35 JST Melvin Carvalho

     in reply to

     @mmasnick interesting article. I do believe in a broader social web, with each system having its own trade offs.

     Why not join the w3c social web community group, and make your case. It is open to all, and we welcome a diversity of opinion.

     https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 02:07:09 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Karl Fogel
     • bryan newbold

     @kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold One way that we do things in the protocol space is to participate in standards organizations that have a patent licensing process. You can see the W3C's here: https://www.w3.org/policies/patent-policy/ There's a lighter policy for W3C community group reports: https://www.w3.org/community/about/process/final/ The IETF is less particular; it has an informal goal of not using patented tech but does allow it in some cases: https://www.ietf.org/process/ipr/

   • Embed this notice
     Karl Fogel (kfogel@kfogel.org)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 02:07:13 JST Karl Fogel

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • bryan newbold

     @evan @bnewbold @mmasnick My understanding (I am not a lawyer) is that pro-freedom patent pledges can be legally risky even for well-intentioned companies, unfortunately.

     A company can make an internal decision to never enforce any of their patents, but then find themselves the target of incoming patent infringement claims for which the best defense is a counterclaim: "Oh yeah? Well, you're infringing some of ours. So how about we sit down and make a cross-licensing deal and call it even?"

     Since competing companies tend to be in similar lines of business, the chances of them having mutually infringing patent claims are much better than random. Thus, having some patents in your back pocket -- even if you don't want nor intend to use them -- becomes a reasonable defensive tactic.

     And it's not so simple to write a pledge that just says "We won't use our patents against anyone unless they use theirs against us first", either. What if another company uses patent infringement claims to restrict the options available to one of your partners / resellers / customers / whatever -- but it is you who have the patent portfolio that is able to make credible counterclaims? Since you weren't the one directly attacked, you'll now be violating your public pledge if you use your patents to protect freedom. Oops.

     Mutual defense pools like OIN can help to address this transitive collective action dilemma, but they don't fully solve it. Fundamentally, the more legally binding public statements a company makes about what they won't do with their patents, the more they preëmptively tie their hands in some potential future patent-related dispute that is forced upon them by an outside party.

     (There are, IIUC, other insidious things about the nature of patent law that make it hard for companies to even talk openly about what their plans are for their patents, or why they have acquired them, etc. Everything you say is there for your opponent's lawyers to pick apart some day, and it's hard to forecast the technical intricacies of every lawsuit or lawsuit-adjacent negotiation you might be involuntary involved in in the future. Open-ended promises are inherently risky.)

     For these reasons, I am not judgemental about a company's patent portfolio, only about their actual patent behavior. It's wonderful & laudable when they make binding pro-freedom public promises -- but I hope that they do so with great care, and that they retain their ability to actually use whatever patent portfolio they may have to defend the commons when needed.

     It's bad that we have a system that requires these counterintuitive tactics, but it's no particular company's fault that we're all operating in a bad system.

     Nemo_bis 🌈 repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 02:09:23 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Karl Fogel
     • bryan newbold

     @kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold A patent pledge from Bluesky would make it possible for others to examine their work and apply their findings to other projects, which was the point of Mike's original post (that experimentation helps the whole ecosystem). The other option is to proactively bring their own work to a standards organization that has some patent pledge or disclosure framework. It'd be wonderful for the Bluesky team to bring ideas for improving ActivityPub directly to the SocialCG at W3C.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 02:13:33 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Karl Fogel
     • bryan newbold

     @kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold All said, I think it's a hard decision on the part of Bluesky. The protocol is their whole raison d'etre and making this kind of proactive pledge would be difficult. However, for those who don't work for the company or have a financial stake in it, knowing that we can use their findings for other projects is very helpful. If that's a priority, and if there's money in the bank, it's probably worthwhile to use their immense font of patent openness experience.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 02:23:16 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • Karl Fogel
     • bryan newbold

     @kfogel @mmasnick @bnewbold I should be clearer: Mike is a board member at Bluesky and has been covering patent use and abuse for decades. There is probably not another person on the planet who has done better work in this area.

     https://www.techdirt.com/tag/patents/

   • Embed this notice
     Karl Fogel (kfogel@kfogel.org)'s status on Friday, 01-Nov-2024 13:34:47 JST Karl Fogel

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou
     • bryan newbold
     @evan Oh, agreed -- I've been a fan of @mmasnick for a long time, for that and many other reasons. It would of course be wonderful if Bluesky would do the things you're suggesting they do, re patent pledges. My purpose in posting was just to explain (in part for anyone reading this thread who might not be familiar with the complexities of corporate patent policy -- a set that probably does not include you or Mike :-) ) how there are reasons why Bluesky might choose not to take those suggestions *even* if Bluesky -- currently, cough cough -- has the very best of intentions. I also don't know what conversations Mike may have had with folks there privately, of course.
     
     /CC @bnewbold
   • Embed this notice
     Ryan Barrett (snarfed.org@fed.brid.gy)'s status on Saturday, 02-Nov-2024 07:32:16 JST Ryan Barrett

     in reply to

     • Tim Chambers
     • Chris Messina
     • Evan Prodromou
     • bryan newbold
     • Kuba Suder • @mackuba.eu on 🦋
     • Jaz (IFTAS)
     • The Nexus of Privacy
     • Mark Darbyshire
     • hallenbeck

     @tchambers @mackuba @markdarb @mmasnick @mike @hallenbeck @evan @thenexusofprivacy @jaz @chrismessina @bnewbold

     Wrote this up: https://snarfed.org/2024-11-01_53932

      

   • Embed this notice
     Nemo_bis 🌈 (nemobis@mamot.fr)'s status on Sunday, 03-Nov-2024 06:44:25 JST Nemo_bis 🌈

     in reply to

     @mmasnick Looks like there's some confusion in the comments about "server". As https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/whats-difference-between-mastodon-bluesky-and-threads wrote, the biggest point of centralisation is currently at the relay level. The BS relay currently plays a role similar to that of mastodon.social in the ActivityPub ecosystem, except it has no competitor. Direct communication between alternative networks of storage/identity servers is not really used, just like most people use Mastodon API clients instead of AP direct communication. #FediMeta