Chris TrottierMy problem with Twitter isn't that a particular billionaire owns it.
It's that a billionaire can own Twitter.
Internet services owned by billionaires:
1. Twitter
2. Facebook
3. Instagram
4. TikTok
5. Snapchat
Internet services not owned by billionaires:
1. Email
2. IRC
3. BitTorrent
4. RSS
5. HTTP
So don’t tell me that walled gardens are inevitable and we should just accept surveillance capitalism as the price of doing business.
beSpacific@atomicpoet just an aside re who #owns #email: adding w h/t @psuPete "RFCs/ IETF Trust An independent body holds copyright for some RFCs & for all others it is granted a license by authors that allows it to reproduce RFCs. The Internet Society is referenced on many RFCs prior to RFC4714 as the copyright owner, but it transferred its rights to the IETF Trust.
implentation of those protocols' applications e.g., Thunderbird, hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc -- some are proprietary and some open source."
implentation of those protocols' applications e.g., Thunderbird, hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc -- some are proprietary and some open source."
@bespacific Vivaldi owns vivaldi.social. Medium own me.dm.
For profit ventures exist.
But no one owns email, and no one owns the Fediverse.
Lee Fife@atomicpoet @bespacific Email is a great example. Just as there are significant corporate email servers, there can be significant mastodon instances run by corporate entities. In fact I'd suggest that any admin of an instance of significant size would be foolish not to run it thru an LLC at least. Obviously doesn't apply to a personal instance, but get over a couple dozen users and it should be behind a liability barrier...
@colo_lee @atomicpoet - agreed. Good folks with good intentions, maintain them...others...not so much. Another challenge is that Big is not Better but it swallows the universe of small, impactful, effective and honest. It also has a way of overtaking the critical asset we all have - choice. This in no way implies the fediverse will not prevail.