Why YSK: If we want to keep the Fediverse in the hands of its users and prevent “enshittification” (search it), it’s good to know how corporations kill grassroots projects like this.
I saw this in another thread on /c/Showerthoughts. I think it’s important for this to be circulated widely so that the broader Fediverse community is aligned. We don’t want admins second-guessing their decisions when users start infighting. We should be united in our thinking and ready to protect our platform.
Okay, but realistically, how can we prevent this from happening in the future?
We’ve already, according to the article, dodged one bullet; but there’s no reason to expect that it’ll be the only one.
Also, due to the nature of the Fediverse being open source, there’s no way to prevent Facebook or other corporate monstrosities from building their own hooks.
I think we need to be prepared to preemptively defederate from the likes of Google, Reddit, Facebook or whatever. Not just this instance, but the greater Fediverse should have a United policy to reject association with those who would consume us and spit us out.
You really can’t stop it unless you deliberately cultivate an anti-corp mindset in your users. You basically have to treat it like cyberpunk rules.
I’d like to say “we have nothing to lose but our chains”, but more accurately we are only as strong as our resolve against corporations. We’ll do what we can, Meta or whatever multinational will do what it does.
We can’t fully stop what they are planning but it is possible to cultivate what we have and let it grow in a direction that’s open, just and not solely for economic ends.
There’s no stopping it. We’re just going to have to keep being ready to migrate to the next platform when the corporate hooks get in and ruin shit.
Agreed. We need to treat this like OUR platform. It’s not the admins’ platform. It’s not the devs’ platform. It’s OUR platform. We create (or at least link) the content. I think that if we maintain this mindset, people will reject corporate attempts to inject themselves into our platform.
Edit: Not to say we shouldn’t appreciate devs and admins. See the thread continued
Excluding admins and devs from the start is just petulant and short sighted. Treating them like the enemy will only encourage them to silo off from the community.
It’s not that they’re the enemy - it’s just that the platform is controlled by its users. If an admin goes bad, users have the ability to change instances or stand up instances of their own. We are not tied to a single entity’s will.
Yes, this is what I meant. Thank you for making it clearer than I did
It would be nice to have some sort of mutually assured destruction with these mega corps.
If we reach a critical mass before the corporate weasels sneak in, then we’ve stolen their first and best chance to gain leverage.
So the earliest wins are the biggest wins. We need users!