- cross-posted to:
- tech@pawb.social
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- tech@pawb.social
- technology@lemmy.ml
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Probably because I just deleted my account over there and deleted all posts and comments I ever made
🍿 let it burn 🔥
All this has me wondering. Lemmy and other fediverse sites should be resistant to enshittification. But how could American corporations screw that up? Could they start their own servers and instances, and somehow make them dominant? Or would that not be worth it to them?
It seems to me that capitalism has pretty much been trying to take over everything, with a lot of success. So I find myself wondering if it could happen here.
Theoretically some large company could use the “embrace, extend, extinguish” model to take over “open” standards. Microsoft was famous back then for using this strategy. It would look something like this:
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Embrace: large company creates a really stable and well moderated instance that federates with almost everything to attract users
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Extend: large company adds custom features to the instance that are incompatible with other instances
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Extinguish: people stop using other instances as incompatibilities start impacting user experience. Big instance might also stop federating with other instances, so users are forced to use their instance to see content. After this, big company starts making the platform shittier to make more money.
They should officially add a fourth “E” to that model - Enshittification.
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Google Chat and Facebook Messenger used to do XMPP. You could message each other cross platform, as well as host your own service. Then when they got big enough, they pulled their interoperability and messaging only worked inside their platform. With the European DMA coming into effect soon it’ll be harder for big companies to fuck up such networks (in fact, they will have to allow external access if they’re of sufficient size) but it has happened before and it will happen again.
Apple’s iChat (precursor to Messages.app) used to do XMPP, too. I don’t think it federated, or if it did it was very short-lived, but all the big tech companies with chat services got their start with XMPP. It’s almost like it’s a great set of tools for communicating, which, sadly and ironically, open source tech seems to have moved on from. To be fair, I far prefer Matrix’s JSON to XMPP’s XML, but it’s a little disappointing that everyone forgets about XMPP.
WhatsApp started as an isolated XMPP server as well. It was the best protocol to base a new app upon and even today it’s a good place to start (if you implement the hundreds of optional extensions).
I think XMPP’s protocol and federation design is better than Matrix’s, but XMPP suffers from many clients not implementing all the necessary extensions to provide a decent experience. I don’t really care about JSON vs XML.
The IETF is working with several services on a cross-platform protocol, probably in part because the DMA will force companies to open up their networks anyway. I think the Matrix project is working on implementing MLS as well.
We’re kind of already seeing it with Mastodon. The official app strongly pushes people toward mastodon.social which is a radioactive dumpster fire. And this isn’t even corporate America, it’s just the folks who own the name.
Why is mastodon.social so bad?
The biggest issue is that they don’t really moderate, so hate speech and bigotry have a greater presence there. I specifically remember a situation where multiple people were reporting things and it took them days (maybe a week or more? I can’t remember, but certainly several days) to take it down. And this happens pretty regularly.
Here is hoping lemmy is easier to moderate and doesnt end up like that.
There are several good mastodon instances, just not mastodon.social. Moderating is hard and you have to actually do it and not be afraid it’s censorship. Oh, and not being a fascist helps. I’m beginning to wonder about the mastodon.social admins.
I was thinking about experimenting mastodon too. What server so you recommend?
I am not at all qualified to make a recommendation for an instance for you to join, I’m sorry! The server list on the Join Mastodon site has some good servers, some bad.
Mastodon had to pick a default instance because so many people complained about the server picking process. People are used to “one service, one app” and backed out when they had to make a choice.
And, as any social network has shown, if you gather enough people on a platform, your platform will turn to shit. It’s an unfortunate side effect of a relatively small yet vocal part of humanity being absolute assholes.
Your points are valid and you’re not wrong, but it’s exacerbated by the poor / lack of moderation as I commented elsethread. You can have a large number of users and still have a tolerable, even useful and pleasant, experience–r/askhistorians is my favorite example of internet moderation.
Reddit has attracted plenty of moderators but on the fediverse those moderators are often lacking in my experience. Some servers have strict moderation (which I’m a big fan of) but there are many people who consider their abuse being removed an infringement of their freedom of speech.
With the fediverse working across servers, every server needs moderators or you’ll have trolls or general shitheads moving from server to server, ruining the experience for everyone. I’ve set up an instance just for myself and I’m already considering writing a script that syncs up the blacklists of various Lemmy servers because I don’t want to deal with that crap every time I open a thread.
Totally a sign of an ultra-successful IPO!
The fucked up thing is that it kind of is…layoffs of this kind almost always have a positive impact on stock prices, which is why they do them. Gotta love capitalism!
Yeah, upon reflection you are right… this looks to be Reddit saying “notice me, potential shareholders, I’m so efficient!”
It feels weird to want history to repeat itself, but I’m really hoping Reddit has to deal with the ironic situation of users migrating from the platform en masse due to awful management decisions.
What would they be migrating to? Neither Lemmy nor Tildes seems to want to take on a mass exodus. Both have said they are not Reddit replacements and they don’t want to be either. I’ve been trying to figure out where people are actually headed to. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, outside?
Hard to say. I used “hoping” because I still have an irking feeling that this won’t ultimately result in much change. I think a small amount of reddit’s base will be upset and may migrate to a different platform (like lemmy, beehaw, kbin, etc.), but the vast majority of reddit’s base won’t actually understand or care about these changes. The group of users that does decide the leave the platform will have multiple options though and I don’t suspect the number of users to truely be unmanageable for any of these places. This is just my opinion though.
Really looking very “investor focused” 🤢
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Time really is a flat circle.
Also I only made that top comment to test Lemmy/Mastodon interaction. Hi from Mastodon! The fediverse is cool!
How are you commenting on a thread from mastodon?
@luna just paste a lemmy URL into the search bar of a Mastodon client! They all run on the same backend basically. That’s the magic of the Fediverse/ActivityPub
That is so, so cool, thank you!
I’m hopeful that lemmy reaches critical mass because of Reddit’s absurd policies.
It’s getting there… The Reddit wave should be enough to get us there if the servers hold up semidecently
Even if the servers don’t. I’d rather deal with downtime (aka forced detox😅) than the ads, the negative trolls, the dumb UI that constantly pushes their app, and so on. Reddit only works because it has so much fresh content. If that breaks down than so will it.
Boy, things are going GREAT over there huh
Oh no! Anyway…
Unfortunately the responsible for the shitshow aren’t in the 5% who will have their lives upended.
Sympathies to them, yes.
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Part of Cory Doctorow’s point is that this pattern emerges with all kinds of companies, especially ones where investors are demanding an outrageous return on a hasty speculation.
Some people have been saying a 2-day blackout isn’t going to do much. But if they’re struggling financially it will most likely really hurt them.
Hopefully if the 2-day blackout is unsuccessful they’ll extend it or plan more blackouts.
I’d imagine so… it makes sense to me to start with 2 days, and then go from there, rather than starting with the “nuclear” option.
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If that’s true, it’s even more asinine. A small number of users make numerous API calls from third-party apps, and in doing so, create all the content that the majority of users are perusing with ads? The quest for short-term gains so often harms long-term viability in corporate America, and I truly just don’t understand how we keep hiring C-level people that keep making the same mistakes over and over
Because C-Level people are more about “how can this company make money” and less about “how can this company treat its workers/customers well” (unless the latter leads to the former).
They are told that increasing value for the investors is the thing that matters. If you have to make “tough choices” that abuse the workers or destroy the brand, oh well. It’s worth it if that revenue number keeps going up. To them, it’s an acceptable loss to keep the board happy.
Every company that has VC, investors, or stock is going to be like this at one point or another. It’s just getting more blatant and obvious now. Disney, WB, Netflix, Twitter, Reddit…it’s a list that just keeps growing.
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For sure it’s unconfirmed. The only things we really know for sure are:
- Reddit wants money for API calls
- Their monetization structure is unreasonable
- The only possible outcome of their monetization structure is the death of third party apps
- Reddit is an American company and conducts itself with the same grace and farsightedness as most of them
Which leads be to the conclusion that the thing you’ve said is quite possible
I’m not American, but isn’t it mandated by law over there to do stuff like this, to create the maximum profit for shareholders?
Forgive my ignorance of US laws!
Does Reddit have the power to un-blackout the subreddits? I.e. Overrule the mods and open things up? I feel like, as in most cases, there are a modest sized group of high caring individuals that will reject/boycott/cancel reddit, but the majority of users, casual and the ones that make reddit their life, will just continue on, only slightly inconvenienced.
Yes Reddit could do that… but mods are extremely valuable, and a lot of subs would stop working without them. Reddit has already been moving to big subs being moderated by Reddit employees, and it generally kills the sub.
Reddit is big enough that it probably won’t die quickly (e.g. like Digg did), but my guess is that this kind of policy shows that the best days of Reddit are in the past.
Reddit is big enough that it probably won’t die quickly (e.g. like Digg did), but my guess is that this kind of policy shows that the best days of Reddit are in the past.
i think twitter is a good model for how we might expect this to go: a slow but undeniable decay into a worse, less functional, generally more miserable site to be on. when the decay will end? who knows. but there’ll likely be an obvious before and after, and an equally obvious point where the site goes from a vanguard of influence online to a social media backwater.
Agree, although it could happen even slower than Twitter. Musk taking over has been a huge shock to the community, and killing off third party apps is only one of the many changes he’s made in a few months. Even if Reddit sticks of their guns on API charges (which they might not), I doubt they’ll do anything as drastic again for a while.
True, they likely have smarter people at the helm than musk
Ahh here it comes. Expect more - IPO layoffs (from personal experience) are definitely a thing
Agreed. I think the post-IPO layoffs will be aggressive in Reddit’s case.
It’s not clear to me how reddit could possibly “grow”. They’ve hit peek influence, and ad-revenues haven’t really been a growth factor that has excited investors. They’re not really a technology powerhouse like Facebook or Google - all they have is their central product. So, when the IPO drops, all I can see for reddit is a future of aggressive layoffs and strong enshittification of Reddit as they seek capitalistic eternal increasing growth.
Yeah Reddit would make an excellent private company with the right owner and likely some re-structuring, but as a public company ooh boy.
Outside some niche subs I’m not on there more than once a day just to see if my lemmy subs missed something, and it’s my last form of social media outside discord/matrix, so if lemmy does take off enough I’ll probably only be there for the odd technical search, which I suspect lemmy will take care of in time.