BIG NEWS: Pawoo.net, the world's 2nd biggest Mastodon instance, has just been acquired.
The entity acquiring them is the Mask Group, a business that also runs mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud. They are also active in the so-called "Web 3.0" space.
If you haven't heard of pawoo.net, it's because many instances have de-federated from it.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mask-network-acquires-pawoo-net-070000858.html
Like it or not, it should no longer be assumed that "volunteers" are running your instances.
The Mask Group, which now runs three large instances "has raised over US$50 million from private and institutional backers"—their words not mine.
There's going to be a massive land grab of all these big instances. There will be lots of merging and acquiring too.
My advice is that you all become *very* aware of who owns your instance and why.
Get to know your admins—make sure their values align with your own.
If you don't want to put your social media life in the hands of strangers, then self-host your own instance.
@mveron Caveat: if they're a non-profit or a volunteer.
Give no donations to instances run by for-profits.
I guess Vivaldi is because it's available as part of the subscription so it could well be a loss leader feature. I don't see a financial relationship with mastodon.cloud or its owners, I've no idea about twit.
Would you say the same about masto.host or any other instance hosting company?
@davidr @atomicpoet @mveron I specifically asked how a mastodon instance can be used currently to directly profit off its users.
Those are walled-garden services that you have no option but to use if you want access to the platform.
If my current mastodon instance tries to monetize me, I can just move and still have the same overall access to the platform. That's the benefit of federation, and why the Fediverse isn't comparable to those platforms.
@byte @atomicpoet @mveron You can move right now. What if they decide to make that hard? Make exporting your data impossible or accessible only via arcane menus and paperwork?
"But the protocol!" Look at email and Microsoft. Once an organization starts using Exchange/Outlook, there's no way to use anything else.
@davidr @atomicpoet @mveron How could they make it hard? https://docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/accounts/#followers The API endpoint for followers is public. The API can achieve anything the front-end could, and that also means I could use third-party apps (like https://movetodon.org/) to use those functions that could've been obscured by my instance.
Outlook, Gmail and other competitors are much more than just e-mail now. There's an entire suite there, email being a miniscule part of it. Changing your email provider is relatively easy assuming you have your own domain, it's all the other stuff that is hard.
But unlike those services that are built almost entirely on private infrastructure, Mastodon is entirely the ActivityPub protocol.
@byte @atomicpoet @mveron I fave'd a post this very morning from someone who said they "finally" got IMAP working with Outlook365.
This is how these companies make money--breaking protocols just enough to keep people captured. They are *good* at it. And when someone figures out how to handle it, they break it again.
@coachtony @byte @davidr @atomicpoet @mveron
Pay for doesn’t (have to) equal “a for profit owns it.”
This is where non-profits should be spun up.
@atomicpoet What is the perceived revenue stream that justifies such an investment?
@atomicpoet @bullivant They may try to copy what Truth Social is doing & insert ads within people’s timelines.
Even though there are corporate-owned instances, it is particularly jarring that a corporate overlord assimilates instances now.
But I think we will see more of this for one reason: Twitter is dying, so companies are trying to “buy the next Twitter” instead of building one.
@atomicpoet @bullivant I agree. We might see corporations target #Pixelfed instances next.
Also, #Mastodon admins are going to receive lucrative offers soon, & some might sell if they are unable to pay operational costs for their servers.
It will become critical for members to support their local servers.
Establish #PlatformCooperative|s:
→ https://mastodon.social/@jpreisendoerfer/109551581704521128
Pls also take note of this posting which explains an #international|ized legal variant of #Coop|s from #Europe:
→ https://mastodon.social/@jpreisendoerfer/109552671629249750
🌺
🏷️ #Genossenschaft #ICA #InternationalCooperativeAlliance #Introduction #Cooperative #CooperativeEconomics #SocietasCooperativaEuropaea #SCE
#EuropeanCooperativeSociety
@darnell @bullivant @SocialCoop
Nice!
Thanks for drawing my attention to it!
I think it would be okay for such #cooperative|s to be #ForProfit (which essentially comes down to support for their members).
Very often, there is an almost immediate reflex to think of a #coop as something which must be #NonProfit.
However, #trade, #craft, #commerce & #service are concepts which are orthogonal to #Capitalism. One can responsably do the first without the latter, even more so in a coop.
🌺
@darnell absolutely agree with you that ads are coming to the Fediverse. Not entirely terrible because servers cost money, but I’m very grateful we have alternative funding mechanisms.
Question of “when” and “how much”.
Timeline injection is the obvious route. That gives the possibility of getting boosted into ad-free instances you’re not otherwise welcome on.
I expect instances with ads on the web UI and locked down APIs.
@darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant I wonder if #ActivityPub is ready for this. How do we converse with people on ad-supported instances without subjecting ourselves to the marketing?
Ad-supported instances will be free but spammy. User base will tend less-technical and less-privileged. If we just de-federate them we will lose valuable diversity.
@darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant One option: protocol level “sponsored post” metadata. Let instances auto hide those. Block instances that broadcast spam without self-flagging. There should be enough good actors for less-privileged users to find an instance that behaves.
Of course, the bad actors will not flag ads. They’ll do sneaky stuff like shove a banner add image onto user’s posts without asking. I’m not looking forward to that.
@darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant I worry a bit about the 'inserting adverts'. It's pretty easy to insert adverts into someone's timeline when you're running the server they use, and maybe that's a fair enough trade off for those users. (I'd hate it.)
But we've seen stupid decisions before, and if they're running the server it'd be a small conceptual step for them to insert adverts into remote users timelines by boosting the adverts on behalf of their users. And that'd be nasty.
@darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant Yeah. I can see it being used if defederation+centralisation is part of their plan, but otherwise it would seem dumb because so many sites would just defederate and that would lose some users.
Crypto-wise, I'm still surprised no crypto companies have put up their own port of a server where you can log in with a wallet and send end-to-end encrypted DMs.
@OpinionatedGeek @darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant
Putting ads into the federation would get them de-feded in a lot of places. Silenced in nearly all, probably.
I actually don't have much of a problem with ad supported instances (beyond my usual problem with ad tech on the web). It's probably inevitable, if we're honest. Where are the tens (hundreds?) of millions going to come from if the Fediverse really takes off?
Volunteers? Can't scale that big. Patreon? Maaaybe.
@john @OpinionatedGeek @atomicpoet @bullivant Some instances already do this.
@aurynn & @JohanEmpa charge their members for access which is wise in my honest opinion.
@darnell @OpinionatedGeek @atomicpoet @bullivant
Oh yeah, me too, and I'm glad I don't have to have them on Mastodon.
But realistically, most people just don't seem to mind the tradeoff. Pragmatically, I think we should prevent the excesses of the ad-tech industry with legislation, rather than try to prevent all ads.
@darnell @atomicpoet @bullivant This part. Mastodon itself is an ad free experience, but there's nothing keeping your instance from having ads.
Eventually, I will self-host.
Edit: Oh, and the Admin of my instance is a good guy and I gave him money to keep it going. I just see the ultimate value of autonomy.
@atomicpoet @bullivant But isn’t the point of grabbing land ultimately to secure the revenue it will yield?
What is the pathway to profitability here?
Those who control information, control the population. They may or may not insert ads, but we've just seen what happens when someone whose only interest is profit and power owns social media, who they let in and what they allow/don't allow to exist and prosper in 'their' social media platform.
Not to mention the datamining potential.
@ikeacurtains @bullivant @atomicpoet yep even ad-free, with their own app or on the web they can track and profile everything.
And selling it to "trusted third parties".
And if I follow someone on that instance I just have to "consent" to being tracked also for my interactions within it.
@ikeacurtains @bullivant @atomicpoet
Maybe the Fediverse way of advertising and brand-awareness is commercial entities setting up their own instances to host their respective accounts for general webcare, products, conferences and news etc
Fans can follow according their liking.
I on the other hand can block them according my not - liking.
@atomicpoet this is all moving very quickly now.
It's not entirely encouraging given .cloud's very light moderation.
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