Nathan SchneiderProvocation: anyone expecting to use Mastodon at no cost is inviting the entry of ads and VCs to this space.
We need commons, not dependency.
https://wiki.social.coop/How-to-make-the-fediverse-your-own.html
Kingsley Uyi IdehenYes, but as you know: "one size fits all" doesn't work in any situation that involves humans.
The #Fediverse (by way of its architecture) will support a variety of funding models across server instance types.
Heterogeneity is the spice of life -- IMHO 😀
Billy Smith@BillySmith @kidehen agreed. But once VCs and the promise of free services for ads enter a market, they tend to drown other things out. They do not tolerate diversity, since they are predicated on monopoly. One way or another, a critical way of maintaining pluralism is to build with cooperative economics.
I entirely agree. :D
I have seen what the overload of VC capital of looking for unicorns has done to the tech ecosystem since the late 90's onwards.
While it has funded many things that would not otherwise have been made, it also funded a lot things that should not have been made... :D
Too many stupid ideas created specifically for the Pump'N'Dump IPO's. :(
The #Fediverse opens up a new frontier for both funding models and the kinds of ventures that get funded.
Fundamentally, it provides the missing infrastructure for the following:
1. Evolving Advertising i.e., making unobtrusive modalities an option
2. Evolving data monetization via new concepts e.g., #Web native ticketing using existing non-fungible tokens like #X509 certificates (driven by #DPKI rather than centralized #PKI)
3. New venture structures
"..But once VCs and the promise of free services for ads enter a market, they tend to drown other things out.."
Historically, in the #Web20 era, yes!
The #Fediverse differs in that it was chugging along stealthily until events a #Twitter took it to escape velocity. Net effect, we have an inflection that's opening up a totally new frontier that much closer to the fundamental architecture and design of the #Web.
2023 will be about new startups and funding models 😀
@kidehen @BillySmith I think the dynamics are very similar. ActivityPub is a protocol much like email and the Web in its structure: clients and servers. It is perfectly capture-able with the same tactics.
And Web3 is no different. VC is all over there. New funding models have not prevailed over it there yet either.
I've already seen it being presented as a new funding model, but continuing the same old behaviour.
One ICO was aimed at providing funding for organisations that wanted to buy CNC machines for digital fabrication, but 60% of the tokens had been pre-assigned to the VC fund that was backing the ICO, so the funding was only lining the VC's bank accounts, and not going towards paying for the CNC machines, as was promised... :(
One method that does work, and is compliant with the FSA reg's in the UK, is Bond Issues.
The Ecological Land Coop used these as a way of buying the farm land for starting up farming coop's.
They use Ethex for Fundraising and Compliance with the FSA reg's.
Let's see what happens in 2023.
I believe the #Fediverse will be different due to its underlying loosely-coupled architecture.
You have Conventional Applications (opinionated and tightly-coupled implementations of protocols operating on structured data) vs New Generation Apps (loosely-coupled implementations of open protocols operating on open structured data).
#UI/#UX used to be the capture point. Today, @Mastodon and other Fediverse apps address that issue.
/cc @BillySmith
This is just another version of the Centralisation/Decentralisation debate that's been going on in computer circles for generations.
Kropotkin wrote about a shiny new decentralised technology that would liberate the masses from the tyranny of the warlords in the 1890's/1900's. He was talking about the invention of the electric motor... :D
Tod RobbinsJust checked some of the notes i made.
It was mostly about the electrification of machine tooling systems using electric motors, rather than using the direct-drive belt-systems powered by steam engines.
The comment about the flour mills was a sidenote, that lead into the Conquest of Bread. :D
But again, Kropotkin was directly talking about the decentralisation potential of new technologies. :D
@BillySmith @kidehen @Mastodon I was struck reading Mutual Aid how much it reminds me of Graeber/Wengrow's Dawn of Everything in some respects.
Yes-ish.
IMHO, the real issue is tight-coupling vs loose-coupling of data interaction protocols and structured data.
The #Fediverse offers a great example of loose-coupling that works -- as uptake demonstrates (even if some of that's down to the #Twitter debacle).
/cc @Mastodon