GrathAug 31, 2023
Hagfish fancier v4.02.01
And I'll say again that the real genius of mastodon/fedverse/activitypub is that it costs money. The implications of that are huge and I don't think get talked about enough. Like, it might not be a lot, and not personally cost you money, but it is costing your server admin money. And that changes things pretty fundamentally.

Like, unfettered growth is no longer desirable, because it's not making you money. Once you remove adtech from the conversation things change, and in fact are inverted in some ways. There is no longer the question of yeah these people are assholes but they are making me a bunch of money. They are now costing you money, and you are in the position of having to decide if you want to support asshole behavior with your own actual money
Aug 29, 2023 at 6:01pmWeb
Show threadBruce ElrickAug 30, 2023
@pagrus That's one of the reasons why I migrated to a co-op server. I pay for my membership and that makes a huge difference in the relationship among all the members and the ones that administrate the instance.
Show threadOblomovAug 31, 2023
@pagrus it's a bit of a double-edged sword though: it reduces the incentives for cancerous growth, but at the same time it reduces access opportunities. This is particularly significant for heavier platforms (image and even more so video).
Show threadarclightAug 31, 2023
@pagrus Being funded by the user base vs adtech, investors, etc. restores users to the role of customer vs product. Nothing stops an instance from being an investor-subsidized hate machine but with account portability and the ability of instances to defederate from bad actors, users aren't trapped on a rogue instance and nobody has to accept rogue instance traffic if they don't want to see it. So the funding model is as important as the system's architecture to limit the harm from rogue instances. Change the incentives, change the behavior.
Show threadAdamas NemesisSep 1, 2023
@pagrus The business model of the Fediverse is much superior to corporate social media.
Show threadHarry HarrisSep 1, 2023
@pagrus This is why I joined mastodon.green - I can afford the monthly sub, and it means I’m supporting the fediverse.