J.T. GrimesMay 12, 2024
Baldur Bjarnason
One of the things that the Stack Overflow brouhaha demonstrates is that it doesn’t matter if a service was founded by people trusted by the community (Atwood and Spolsky) and was broadly community-led. If it’s a VC-funded startup, they will sell out their users at some point.
May 12, 2024 at 1:48pmWeb
Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMay 12, 2024

People keep forgetting that "by developers, for developers" was a big part of Stackoverflow's initial pitch. It was founded by people who most of the community implicitly trusted. They said all the right things. But as soon as they took VC-funding it was just a matter of time.

I think we know better now than to trust something like a VC-funded community site, but remember that SO was founded in 2008 at the tail-end of the Web 2.0 funding bubble

Show threadTheCityDweller May 12, 2024
@baldur Never ever give any self produced information to any VC or non VC starter Start-up. Would you work for free for millionaires and billionaires? No, people would call you stupid. But on the Internet, people applaud and do exactly this.
Show threadMagnus AhltorpMay 12, 2024
@toor @baldur Every tech startup is part of Big Tech. There are only two ways to exit: be acquired or go bust. That’s what it means to be a startup. It’s fundamentally different from a small company.
Show threadNoah GibbsMay 13, 2024

@toor @baldur Part of the difficulty here is that publishing *any* open-source software is likely to get into their hands. Producing *any* writing that you distribute gives them the writing too.

There are arguably licenses that would help with that problem - AGPL3 for software, maybe? Or Ethical Source License? But mostly you have to rob the commons -- by not contributing -- to avoid the VCs and millionaires getting to use the thing too.

Show threadJason PunyonMay 12, 2024

@baldur Yes, agree with all this.

And there is one difference between this enshittification and all others. We have the data, because we sold out to ourselves before we sold out to the VCs. I hope it can make a difference, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't. It's going to be incredibly difficult for a new Stack Overflow to grow in a world where search engines don't work.

https://seqlite.puny.engineering

SEqlite

Show threadBoudMay 12, 2024

@JasonPunyon @baldur

Looks like 16.9 GiB for stackoverflow.com.sqlite.br (16.9GiB) and roughly 6 GiB for the rest. Maybe people running #SearXNG instances could add searches on data dumps like these?

Show threadAndreas KMay 12, 2024

@baldur Worse, at some point the “trusted people” might want to retire, and will sell.

And then the vulture capitalists will be waiting.

Show threadAndreas KMay 12, 2024

@baldur Practical example: 2 decades ago, we were customers of an excellent, but relative small local ISP. Side benefit, the CTO knew me from my uni days. We could get real technical difficulties solved in record time.

Then their ISP was swallowed by a bigger one. No issue, although our different contracts with the smaller one confused them, but we solved the issue, albeit with the help of their legal department.

Rinse and repeat, and today I'm so happy to be a Magenta Austria customer.

Show threadAndreas KMay 12, 2024
@baldur But at least one learns to control sudden to do physical damage. And one realizes that while the call centre agents are dumb and badly trained, it's not exactly their fault. And so on, sigh.
Show threadBilly SmithMay 17, 2024

@yacc143 @baldur

A start-up only gets VC funding if they can show they will make a profitable exit.

The sell-out is already baked in from the start.

Show threadHeath StewartMay 12, 2024

@baldur I wonder how many Vulture Capitalists have MBAs. Merely a coincidence, likely, but cut from the same cloth.

I knew a person - one of the nicest, thoughtful, and customer-driven people I knew - who got their MBA and completely changed. Then it was all about what's cheapest even though we weren't asked to tighten it belts. Seemed they weren't as well-liked after that.

Show threadPaulMay 13, 2024
@heaths @baldur The venn overlap is probably significant. I’m sure there are “good” MBAs out there, but for me it’s an instant red-flag.
Show threadjnpnMay 14, 2024
@baldur seems like most things rot after some time, we may restore regular burnings to start fresh every 5 years or so
Show threadFediThing May 12, 2024

@baldur

Yes, this is what is really hard to get across sometimes. The involvement of VCs in community projects is really dangerous, it pretty much always leads to "enshittification" at some point down the line.

Another example of enshittification by VCs is Ello, which claimed to be an ethical social network but eventually became exactly the opposite because of VC involvement:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

The Quiet Death of Ello's Big Dreams - Waxy.org

Ello launched in 2014 with big dreams, but the artsy social network suddenly shut down last year, deleting nine years of posts without warning. What happened?

Waxy.org
Show thread▚ pixelistik ▗▚▗▘May 12, 2024

@baldur Trust is all fine, but what counts is the license. In this case, our content is under CC-BY-SA. What seems relevant to me:

- using the content for AI training does (unfortunately?) not trigger the attribution requirement ("fair use", bla bla)
- it should be feasible to pull of a fork of Stack overflow, with a legal copy of all existing content

Show threadDaniel LakelandMay 12, 2024
@pixelistik
If you can get the content. There's no obligation for them to transfer it to you. They could say you're violating terms of service for your bot crawling their site and shut you down no problem. They've enclosed a commons and will defend it.
@baldur
Show thread▚ pixelistik ▗▚▗▘May 12, 2024
@dlakelan It seems that there is a dump file maintained by archive.org - enabled by exactly the CC license. https://archive.org/details/stackexchange
Stack Exchange Data Dump : Stack Exchange, Inc. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This is an anonymized dump of all user-contributed content on the Stack Exchange network. Each site is formatted as a separate archive consisting of XML files...

Internet Archive
Show threadDaniel LakelandMay 12, 2024

@pixelistik

Awesome, now we just have to figure out how to defend the archive.org from the statist bullshit when the FBI comes for them for violating copyright law. 😩

Show threadJason PunyonMay 12, 2024
@dlakelan @pixelistik This'll be easier to use. https://seqlite.puny.engineering
SEqlite

Show threadNuzz 🧋May 14, 2024
@dlakelan @pixelistik @baldur They freely offer full downloadable dumps of all the content on the site, I believe, so that at least I don’t think would be a problem.
Show threadmirabilosMay 12, 2024

@pixelistik @baldur

using the content for AI training does (unfortunately?) not trigger the attribution requirement

No matter what Creative Commons are hallucinating, SO/SE are sidestepping this entirely by relying on the commercial dual licence in the ToS which they sneakily did not limit to as needed to run the platform itself.

Show thread▚ pixelistik ▗▚▗▘May 12, 2024
@mirabilos @baldur Yes, that's true, so my first point may be irrelevant. I still think that the second point (an open license as an "escape hatch") is a valid option. And I somehow prefer the legal perspective over the emotional discussion.
Show threadmirabilosMay 12, 2024

@pixelistik @baldur I don’t understand what you’re asking/saying?

There’s a public data dump of SO/SE under CC-BY-SA which people can use.

(Codidact have imported some sites early on but later found that untenable; active Q&A sites tend to work better if they only have their own, active, content apparently. @amin has done something to search these dumps, and I’d not mind having that separate.)

Show threadpgcdMay 12, 2024
@baldur on the bright side, they clearly believe that SO has answered all the questions that will ever need to be asked, because sure as *duck* nobody's going to answer anything there now.
Show threadJonMay 13, 2024
@pgcd @baldur Reddit seems to have survived OK. This discussion feels a lot like Gaza, Twitter, etc. - a small number of people *really really care* while most people, even if generally thinking what's going on there sucks, do not and continue on with their lives as before.
Show threadpgcdMay 13, 2024
@oddhack @baldur true that, but I've seen enough people point out their SO answers (even in CVs) to think they fulfill different psychological needs.
I'm ready to stand corrected as soon as I see a CV listing somebody's memorable answer to an r/AITA post.
Show threadEatonMay 12, 2024
@baldur back in the day, that origin story was a real inspiration. Now it feels like a “live to see yourself become the villain” punchline
Show threadBaldur BjarnasonMay 12, 2024
@eaton Yeah, indeed.
Show threadLibertyBetaMay 12, 2024
@baldur So very tired of this churn.
Show threadGhislain VaillantMay 12, 2024
@baldur yet another example of #enshittification. Whatever VC touches turns into crap, eventually. It's no longer a question of if, but when.
Show threadRandoMay 12, 2024
@baldur profit motives gonna profit motive
Show threadAdlangxMay 12, 2024
@baldur always, and Atwood deserves some blame here.
Show threadWild Eyed Boy From FreecloudMay 12, 2024

@baldur There's always a song for everything:

https://youtu.be/9tXVK7fh-kI?si=R2ggp7DqeMO7ThZH

Heatwave - Always and Forever (Audio)

YouTube
Show threadThreadbaneMay 12, 2024
@baldur
They generally wreck the company first, sell all the assets, pocket the cash and move on to the next acquisition. Private equity corpirations and LLCs should be illegal.
Show threadHubert FiguièreMay 12, 2024
@baldur but are they still trusted by the community?
Show threadHoward Chu @ SymasMay 12, 2024
@baldur "VC-funded startup" isn't even the only factor - plenty of cool projects started out with no VC funding, but then got acquired later in their life by private equity types. A clean start is no guarantee.
Show threadBogDrakonovMay 12, 2024
@baldur I’d rather not have a company than give up control to a VC and tarnish my name or betray my users.
Show threadShadowbottleMay 12, 2024
@baldur @gregatron5 that’s what the C in VC stands for.
Show threadJ. PetersonMay 12, 2024
@baldur Yeah. Any time a startup brags about their privacy policy, remember said policy will last for the time it takes to go from the filing cabinet to the trash can as soon as its acquired.
Show threadNicolas HolzschuchMay 12, 2024
@baldur For people that still have the possibility to chose between VC-funded and self-funded, it might be a strong example to help make the right choice.
Show threadsamiamsamMay 12, 2024

@baldur all of them

every single time

Show threadKevin RussellMay 12, 2024

@baldur

Mastodon added a VC to the Board, just a warning.

Show threadsmxiMay 12, 2024

@baldur another case of "developers making for developers" was googlecode. Then as #github grew gc got less use then spam bots started posting fake spam issues which, just like today, Google's no intelligence or understanding AI (sic) was unable to detect so they shut down what was probably the last developer oriented corporate funded source repo we'll ever see.

Then @Codeberg came along to save the day. But at cost of needing to match much of gh features.

Corps required to profit. Period.

Show threadChad MetcalfMay 13, 2024
@baldur Founders who believe they can do something they love and build a company out of it eventually realize that it costs $ to build something and give it away for free. In the past they’ve built it on the belief that they could find some way to make that sustainable or even profitable. But developers don’t want to pay. For anything. This attitude was energized and sustained by zirp. That’s gone and what’s left is monetization of what they can.
Show threadDarkstarMay 13, 2024
@baldur we must all return to use-net!
Show threadAaron Bieber (no relation)May 14, 2024

@baldur As I am always reminding people, a person can have compassion and loyalty, but a company cannot. Companies are amoral sociopaths.

Publicly traded companies even more so.