I know this is not the hill I should die on. But it is a real problem that the Fediverse is being handed over to a single individual, and nobody seems to care.
It’s kind of like when your Grandma calls the web “The Facebook” or your Aunt says “I was on The Google checking the scores on ESPN”.
But this time it’s supposed to be open. It’s supposed to be decentralized. It’s not supposed to be one company owned by one person. It’s not supposed to be one implementation in one piece of software.
Just like you didn’t want everyone to call the web “Facebook” you shouldn’t want to call the Fediverse “Mastodon”.
@evan As somebody who built handfuls of different types of widgets, “Facebook apps”, and liberal use of the Facebook API for a living, at the time it felt “better”, but in many ways it was actually worse because we weren’t looking at it with a critical lens. There was a time where I was sending every kind of OpenGraph-compatible action to Facebook for aggregation purposes (Gabe listened to N songs using X, Mary played Y game Z times). Meaning the shady stuff Facebook does now to collect data they didn’t have to do back then. I happily volunteered that data for free.
One of the most amazing things about the Fediverse is that you can run your own services and set your own rules, building something that represents what is important to you.
If you chose not to run your own software and services, and instead utilize services somebody else runs, it's unlikely you'll be 100% aligned with those who you rely on to run them for you. People are unique, and companies are... companies. It's impossible to be completely on the same page for everything. Therefore, you shouldn't be surprised when they decide not to offer you those services any longer for any reason they choose. Their house, their rules. They owe you nothing.
I've relied on botsin.space to host the @owncast account for a while, but I only recently noticed it's been reduced to a restricted account. Their house, their rules.
So my options are to run my own microblogging service for this single account, or take that functionality offline. If I run it, my service, my rules. But like anybody else, I have to weigh the pros and cons of running yet another service I need to maintain, and this time it's not personally worth it.
Hopefully, this bot has been helpful in sharing live streams to those who wouldn't have normally seen them.
While every #owncast server doesn't choose to be on the Fediverse, hopefully those who want to be shared with others decide to be. And if so, this bot isn't needed anymore, anyway.
People say using the Fediverse is complicated because you “have to select an instance”. And I think the Fediverse is great because you *get* to select an instance.
Choice! Flexibility! Find those who align with you! How is any of this bad? This is a feature. This is a gift.
Auto-suggesting all new Fediverse users join mastodon.social just doubles down on the notion that choice is bad, and centralization is good, and we should continue with the status quo.
Sure, people say selecting an instance is confusing. But that’s because they’ve never had to do it before. And if we collectively continue to say “choice is confusing” then nothing changes.
People adapt. Quicker than you think. I mean, remember Snapchat and its super weird UI? People loved it (for some reason) after they got used to it. Give people a chance, don’t back down when they say it’s hard, and continue doing what’s right, and people will adapt. Ultimately growing the number of people who see choice as a gift.
It's scary that this person would have taken whatever output that a glorified autocomplete returned to him, and he would have just treated it as correct because he didn't know any better to scrutinize it.
When these products change from being accidentally wrong because they're stupid, to being purposefully wrong because it helps their bottom line, nobody will notice.
Every other development platform, other than the web, doesn’t natively support cookies (some have bad support as a 5th class citizen that are never used). Why does the web need them? Why use them?
I’m going through some legal due diligence for Owncast. And while Owncast doesn’t know who you are, isn’t tracking you, doesn’t require accounts, etc etc, it’s pretty standard legal boilerplate, in order to cover yourself, that these things are possible.
On one hand, I want to absolutely cover the project as far as liability, but on the other hand I don’t want people to think we actually do these things.
I’m probably going to err on the side of protecting the project, but I feel bad about it. Has anybody had to work through this before?
@roadriverrail I went out of morbid curiosity. It was just a smoothie place with an app to order the smoothie. The only “AI” I noticed was it took all the ingredients you selected and gave you a name for the drink. Like “Blueberry banana blast” or whatever.
This article sums it up. I particularly like how they called out how clear it was that all of their “happy customer” photos are all obviously AI generated.
A few months ago I built an #iOS and #tvOS app for watching #Owncast streams natively on your phone and tv. You could browse the directory, or add your own private servers that aren’t listed publicly. It would send you push notifications when your favorite streams went live and it all worked pretty well.
Apple has been unable to understand how the “rights” work in this case. I can’t get them to understand that people opt into the directory, and the Owncast project owns and runs the directory. Instead they see it as me “using content without rights” and “accessing a catalog without proper rights”. They asked me to provide the paperwork detailing the agreement I have with every Owncast server. Clearly that’s impossible. The number of servers that want to be public on the directory change every day, I couldn’t send them new documentation every day. I tried to explain that the directory is kind of like a search engine and the application is like a browser. A browser doesn’t have explicit rights to every webpage ever made, as that would be ridiculous. I also tried to compare it to a podcast client. A podcast client can play back any podcast without asking for permission, and there are tons of podcast directories.
They’ll approve the application if I don’t use the directory and don’t have any Owncast servers directly available from the application, however. But I’m not willing to do that as that kind of defeats the point of the convenience.
I contacted a handful of attorneys, and I was willing to fight this. I hoped if I could get an attorney to draft a document that explains, in legal terms, something that Apple’s legal team would understand it could be cleared up. But I haven’t been able to have a meaningful conversation with any of them, as none of them understand what I’m doing or aren’t interested in working with a non-corporate entity.
So I think this is dead, killed by Apple. I tried to build something cool for you all, as a side project, to make viewing Owncast streams more convenient. It’s just not going to happen and I feel bad about it.
@roadriverrail I haven’t pulled the #OldGoth card yet. I’m holding on to my Goth youth as long as I can! But it’s only holding on by a thread. A little eyeliner and huge boots will keep me young.
I want to write something funny. But I have nothing. The hustle bros have worn me down. And yes, I tried it. That’s how I know it’s a bunch of hustle bros. There’s nothing “AI” about this place. It’s just a web app where you select smoothie ingredients.
Just listened to the new @changelog episode about #opentf. A bunch of people band together, forked a major project, and found enough people who were interested in it existing and wanting to be involved.
I wish this could happen with a browser.
Sure, there's a ton of small indie browsers that are using forks of Gecko and Chromium. But I'm talking about a real organization. A real, open source first, nonprofit, who's job it is to build a browser for the people. No Google slipping in advertising features, no Mozilla taking money from Google, no Brave adding crypto. A browser from the people for the people, without corporate ownership and direct control.
It's a pipe dream. But it's a hell of a dream. I'm sure it'd be hard, but I don't think it would be impossible. Everybody needs a browser. Why can't it be treated as a public good?