Mastodawn

An interview with @thisismissem from @APC: FediMod FIRES on building better and decentralised social media applications (by @XavCC).

Probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned over the years of the Fediverse is that it depends almost entirely on volunteer labour. There are a few people that are paid full time to work on the Fediverse. But to actually get the things that you need, it very much largely depends on volunteer labour, because projects are either chasing funding through grants or they're chasing funding through their nations. And those demands can often be at odds with what people overall need or want.

So that's probably the biggest learning from the Fediverse that I have: a lot of it is just run and funded by individuals and volunteers, which often means that it doesn't move as fast as more commercial operations.

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marius 4d ago

> And those demands can often be at odds with what people overall need or want.

@hongminhee and here
I was thinking that having corporatized projects chasing investment returns is the thing that brings the wrong incentives to the development of social media. As it is daily reminded to us by Facebook and Co.

I'm going to speak my mind about this:
@thisismissem has sold out.

@mariusor Speaking as someone who knows her personally, it's hard to judge when I know how much of it came down to survival rather than principle. And the fact that she kept working on standards that benefit both ecosystems through all of that reads more like holding on than selling out, to me.

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marius 4d ago

@hongminhee framing the discrepancy between volunteer driven vs capitalist interests driven projects in favour of the capitalists speaks very clearly to me.

In the current market where capitalist efforts have become in large part LLM driven, it's out right disrespectful to imply that moving fast is somehow better than doing things right.

(Granted that volunteer development doesn't guarantee it either, but in my opinion has a more authentic chance)

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洪民憙 (Hong Minhee)

4d ago

@mariusor I don't disagree with the broader point, but I think there's a difference between a project being captured by capitalist interests and a person finding a way to keep the lights on. She wasn't funding a startup, she was paying rent. The authenticity you're describing is a real thing, but it's a lot easier to hold onto when you're not watching your savings disappear.

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Jeff 4d ago

@hongminhee @mariusor I have followed Emelia's work closely. I assure you she has attempted to sustain herself on work for the fediverse.

She has a desire to do good, even to her detriment financially and physically. I respect that spirit, but fret the implications. I was happy to see this opportunity for her.

The same is true for any fedi developer I've followed and supported as much as I could. There are many in the same position I'm afraid, or close to it.

Your accusations don't help.

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marius 4d ago

@box464 it's not an accusation. It's an observation, and I accept that it might be wrong.

And I'm happy to see people get paid for their meaningful work, but I am against speaking ill of people that invest personal time for the betterment of all.

I'm not commenting because she moved on from the fediverse, but because she's misrepresenting what people like me stand for while still doing work for it.

Speaking bad of your ex in public is not a good look. I don't mean to offend, and I hope I was respectful enough to not be under suspicion that this is some kind of baseless personal attack.

@hongminhee

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Emelia 👸🏻4d ago

@mariusor @box464 @hongminhee to say I've "moved on" from the fediverse ignores all the work I'm still doing related to the fediverse. I'm still the lead of the ActivityPub Trust & Safety Taskforce, I still give feedback when asked, I'm just not writing code actively for one project that could highlight my work but not give me credit for it, instead passing it off as their own.

You can stand for whatever you want, but here the interviewer specifically asked me "how do I survive" and "who takes care of you?", and I answered with my truth: surviving independently in the fediverse is extremely difficult as a freelancer.

I'm not saying grants and donations can't work for funding projects, but actually that we need much more of it faster to really move forwards.

The current time for NLNet grants is 4-6 months from application, and I know that because I'm trying to secure two large grants for fediverse work. My first grant for FIRES took a year from submission to MoU signed. That's impossibly slow funding for something we all knew we needed yesterday.

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Emelia 👸🏻

@mariusor @box464 @hongminhee personally, the cost of working on the fediverse has been high for me due to the financial insecurity, the uncertainty, the conspiracy theories, the immigration challenges, etc.

For instance, I've not had money for three years to continue my gender transition. I used all my savings working on the fediverse in 2023. €16k gone in less than 9 months.

I had no financial security, and you know who did show up for me when I really needed it at the start of the year? The AT Protocol community: they donated in one day the entire amount I usually raised in a month.