Mastodawn

Koda Nov 9, 2022

@chartier But if they don't build a model to help fund the expense of running servers, this will all got the way of IRC, Email, Newsgroups etc. Users must be the customer in order to prevent becoming the product.

@zaskoda @chartier yeah, it’s really a shame how no one uses email anymore 😉

Koda

@gerwitz @chartier okay, let's gets into that. Email is federated. Yet, most people use one of a few big providers who exploit user data to target ads. If you're not paying for the product, you will become the product. Running your own email server is prohibitively challenging, in part because of spam. And spam happens because sending email is free. Charge one tenth of a penny for an email and it would drastically reduce spam. But you want it all to be free.

@zaskoda @gerwitz Gotta disagree on the 'running your own server' point.

Running your own *physical* server, in your own garage? Sure, maybe. But I think it's easy to say most people wouldn't want to do that anyway. They'd go to a service provider like any of the zillions of web hosts and even dedicated email services we have, and those are all dirt cheap. No ads, pro-privacy, etc.

(Contd)

@zaskoda @gerwitz Do most people want fedi/masto to be free? I think that's a tough call. The network is designed to prefer lots of small instances (over 1,100 now), which are relatively cheap to run.

Many of them start up Patreons to cover the costs. If they get large enough, it grows to cover mods. It seems to be working quite well so far. I don't see any imminent threat of advertising or other insidious funding mechanisms.

@chartier @gerwitz having to resort to Patreon demonstrates the problem. If Mastodon takes off, someone will become a big service provider and consolidate users, just like email. Then they will exploit that user base. Sure there will be alternatives, but it'll be such an inferior experience that few people will even consider them, just like email.

@zaskoda @gerwitz So then the rest of the network can choose to defederate those large, abusive instances. They already do it with Gab and even Mastodon.social and .online for various reasons (many related to poor moderation or deliberate federation with abusive instances).

It's been working well so far. Communities organizing themselves and deciding who they want to hang out with. Just like people IRL. I think it's great.

@zaskoda @chartier I frankly expect an email-like future if Mastodon grows to threaten the ad companies, where e.g. Meta wakes up and makes an easy to understand instance.

The race is on to establish a resilient enough network that this future looks like Gmail’s, where a *lot* of people are happy (or ignorantly) captive but to remain viable is nonetheless compelled to participate in open protocols.

Or to stop before it becomes a threat to the attention monetizers.

@gerwitz @chartier it sounds like you're okay with the paradigm of Gmail users being exploited for their data??? Personally, I consider this to be a threat to society in general. So we're probably coming from completely different places.

@zaskoda @chartier oh, don’t confuse “expect” with “okay with”! I would like to burn the whole neoliberal system of feudalism to the ground.

@gerwitz @chartier I can see that distinction. Maybe in some future thread I'll do better at explaining why I think solving that will require having people pay for their use. But right now I just feel bad for setting chartier off.

@zaskoda @gerwitz Now that's just a dishonest reading of my position dude. I'm out. Muting this.

@chartier @gerwitz I was replying to @gerwitz

@chartier @gerwitz we've been down this path. People don't use federated IRC, they use Slack or Teams. People don't use federated news groups, they use Facebook. What Mastodon has done is well excited, but not new. And there's nothing here to prevent the same fate from befalling Mastodon. If you're not the customer, you become the product.

@zaskoda @gerwitz Dude at this point it feels like you're just ignoring everything they've been doing different, the potential that *is* here, and the years of growth and experience down these paths that have already happened in Fedi.

If you're stuck on doom and gloom, well that's certainly a take. But I'm here because I believe in it and I'm trying to help in a few places where I can. This is the part of the conversation where I hop off.

@chartier @gerwitz I agree, the potential is there. But there's a key problem left unsolved. The place I'm coming from is better explained by Jaron Lanier. His book "who owns the future" digs deep into the issues in clearly failing to communicate. Even if you're frustrated with me, I still think you'll be glad you read it. Take care.

Phil Nov 10, 2022

@zaskoda @chartier @gerwitz Any book describing the future is a complete fictional hypothesis. Why would anyone talk about it as though it were gospel truth?

@Phil_C @chartier @gerwitz not sure where you're getting this gospel thing from. My recommendation for the book still stands. You're welcome to ignore it.

Phil Nov 10, 2022

@zaskoda @chartier @gerwitz I'm merely saying it's a hypothesised work of fiction. I wonder if anyone wrote a book about how Twitter was bought by a weird billionaire using Saudi money only for it to tank as a result.
Probably not, because the future is rarely as we predict it.
It could be a well written book but it's all navel gazing fiction, in which case why wouldn't read some proper science fiction instead.

@chartier @gerwitz I feel like you've never actually attempted to run your own mail server. Do it, show me. Move your email to a server you maintain yourself. If it's so easy breezy, it should be no big deal for you, yeah? We can talk later about everything that's going to go terribly wrong.

@chartier @gerwitz here's a slightly better overview of the challenge than I would be able to write up myself: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/why-you-may-not-want-to-run-your-own-mail-server

Why You May Not Want To Run Your Own Mail Server | DigitalOcean

When setting up a web site or application under your own domain, it is likely that you will also want a mail server to handle the domain’s incoming and outgo…

@zaskoda @gerwitz Maybe we're talking different levels of running your own server, of which there are many?

I run a couple addresses through my web host. But there are also many dedicated services like Fastmail, where it's basically 'managed' for you and they fight spam quite well.

Like, there's a broad spectrum when it comes to DIY email, and the ecosystem for Masto and Fedi is growing the same way. Has for years.

@zaskoda @gerwitz And, again, while the option is there, I don't think it's controversial to claim that the majority of people won't want to go that route. They'll want something managed, like Fastmail, and plenty of options are springing up.

Digital Ocean. Masto.host, Fedi.Monster, NextCloud, etc. I've heard some traditional web hosts are spinning up one-click options like WordPress and many other apps.

Noah Gibbs Nov 13, 2022

@chartier @zaskoda @gerwitz In a case where you might ever have to deal with, say, the internals of Postgres, the vast, vast majority of people do not want to touch it. Ever. If that's the cost of using this social network, nearly everybody just won't.

The admins I see here do, in fact, have to touch Postgres. It's one reason there aren't more of them, even as the giant Twitter influx happens.

Noah Gibbs Nov 13, 2022

@chartier @zaskoda @gerwitz I'm not saying "Postgres is bad." It's by far the best DB we have. But touching *any* database is too much admin work, and leaves us vulnerable to centralised solutions (unless we have some other way around that.)

Same problem as running an email server, which requires a similar level of ongoing drudgery plus specialised expertise. It's hard to get lots of people doing that for you, at scale.

"We'll just require a lot more good-quality free DevOps" is hard to scale.

Hans Gerwitz Nov 13, 2022

@codefolio @chartier @zaskoda I like this point about sacking sysadmin. The role of mastohost may be under appreciated in supporting recent growth, and a healthy fediverse would have many such services.