Mastodawn

Elena Rossini ⁂6d ago

RE: https://mas.to/@Aubreader/116330793703168577

This article is a must read.

An excerpt: “Why would anyone fund an Atmosphere project if #Bluesky, with $100 million in the bank, might ship a competing feature at any moment? Why would a founder bet their career on this ecosystem? The presentation didn't just hurt Graze. It made the entire ecosystem look unfundable.”

Why do I keep bringing up this topic?

Because #ATproto is often put in the same category as #ActivityPub (“open protocols yay”) but I strongly disagree with that stance

LumiWorx 6d ago

After reading, it leaves me with concerns that are not dev related.

1. If there's xlarge $ infusions involved, it means profit will always be 1st, and fuck the tech. They will never care.

2. If they'll eat their young once - and don't wince about it - they WILL do it again and enjoy it more aggressively every time.

3. Once they have a taste of their own, they'll feed on other's 'outside the family'.

They want performing monkeys, not projects with merit.

Elena Rossini ⁂

@lumiworx I sometimes feel like I'm not a good "team player" when I point out weaknesses in the ATproto world. Big elephant in the room: the 100 million dollars in VC money by crypto bros. A lot of people I cherish are all for promoting both protocols (ATproto and ActivityPub), but I remain highly skeptical. And afraid. ATproto gives me big EEE vibes

LumiWorx 5d ago

I don't think that would be accurate at all, in terms of what I presume most might think.

Assuming my memories haven't failed me yet, @Gargron saw a need for a community solution, and decided to tackle it as people-centric, rather than seeking a profit generator social replacement to fill his bank account.

Other's have sought the opposite, and as time goes on, the altruistic mask has fallen away, and they can't escape the obvious.

Never think it doesn't need some sunlight. :)

@[email protected] said in This article is a must read.:

I don't think that would be accurate at all, in terms of what I presume most might think.

Assuming my memories haven't failed me yet, Gargron saw a need for a community solution, and decided to tackle it as people-centric, rather than seeking a profit generator social replacement to fill his bank account.

You mean how Eugen demanded a payday before stepping aside as CEO/Managing Director of Mastodon, a job he never particularly wanted to do and which stalled the project for many years? Are we forgetting that Eugen took €1 million of the €3 million mastodon raised in funding recently?

Not everything is as rosy here as y'all wanna believe, lots of hidden history.

⁂ ActivityPub.Space

⁂ ActivityPub.Space

LumiWorx 4d ago

"I don't think that would be accurate at all, in terms of what I presume most might think."

That was in reference to Elena's comment about being viewed as a team player... and nothing else.

As for "my memories failing me...", I was recalling from memory what I read years ago and recollected as Eugen's comments on why he had chosen to work on ActivityPub and Mastodon. I'm not a member of the board, nor do I have access to info on those events.

LumiWorx 4d ago

AFAIK, there's still no VC money coming in, nor is there outside manipulation by anyone, and what executive direction there is comes from the org's board... so, what exactly is your point?

Eugen Rochko 5d ago

@_elena @lumiworx I for one am not one of those people. For me it's ActivityPub only.

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@Gargron @lumiworx very nice to hear that Eugen.

Fellow member of team ActivityPub only 🙋🏻‍♀️

@_elena @Gargron @lumiworx count me in.

Evan Prodromou 5d ago

@_elena @Gargron @lumiworx

I am also, but maybe in a different way.

As someone who helped create ActivityPub and works every day to promote its use, I absolutely believe that everyone should make and use ActivityPub-native software. At SWF, we only do ActivityPub projects.

But if a developer chooses to build on ATProto, and to make their software and accounts bridgeable so we can stay connected, that's infinitely better than being cut off entirely.

Evan Prodromou 5d ago

@_elena @Gargron @lumiworx

I mentioned elsewhere that I think supporting the openness of the Atmosphere is important for whatever comes next there. Whether BlueSky thrive or don't survive, the more the ATproto stack is standardized and independent, the better it is for the Fediverse.

Evan Prodromou 5d ago

@_elena @Gargron @lumiworx

I think it would be really great to work with companies like Graze to get their software to support ActivityPub also. That could be through the bridge or through the ActivityPub API or the Mastodon API. For them, it's hedging their bets, and for us, it's more developers in our ecosystem providing more functionality.

Evan Prodromou 5d ago

@_elena @Gargron @lumiworx I also think that A New Social has been doing great work to make new applications on the ATproto stack, like long form text with https://standard.site/ , available as Articles on the Fediverse. Whether through bridging or dual stack clients, all data and accounts connected to ActivityPub is a plus.

Standard.site - One schema. Every platform.

Standard.site provides shared lexicons for long-form publishing on AT Protocol. Making content easier to discover, index, and move across the ATmosphere.

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@evan absolutely 💯

@Gargron @_elena @lumiworx

Company with +$100m in VC says one thing but does another. They're just doing the Apple "Sherlock" / Amazon "undercut and put the competition out of business" playbook.

Who's going to stop them?

I always hear about how BlueSky isn't the ATMosphere yet, time and again I see this bad behavior. They will dictate the path forward with their deep pockets.

They are incentivized to clone the good community ideas to increase their own value to pay back those VCs.

LumiWorx 5d ago

@occult @Gargron @_elena

Exactly. I'm certainly not against new protocols, and would much prefer them to be open and standardized.

My issue(s) are absolutely with puppetmastering devs, and using bait-and-switch logic to 'grow' a project that was designed at the outset to run counter to the 'solution' it was meant to solve. Lull a few hundred hopefuls into coding this sticky social concept into something glorious, only to walk away with the fruits of someone elses work, without remorse.

@lumiworx @Gargron @_elena this is literally how it works in Silicon Valley. Amazon, Apple, Google have all done this via feature cloning, acquisition to kill a project. You name it, they've done it.

VC funded BlueSky would not be doing their jobs to increase shareholder value if they did not do all of the above and more. They have to, someone at the VCs funding this will instruct them to do so if it meant getting an ROI sooner.

Anyone who thinks they won't is being naive. I've seen it myself.

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@occult I know and it makes me sad to see so many of my friends being blueSKY-pilled

@_elena but that is just it, why? What is their goal? I see folks talking about how hard it is to get "exposure" on Mastodon, but I ask, do we really care about that? I do not.

Everyone is using these networks for different reasons. I (thankfully) do not have to care about an audience.

Everyone saw how Instagram ended up with clout-chasing influencers, and BlueSky may be heading in that same direction of placating the audience above all else.

@_elena I do not want to be surrounded by 1000 versions of the same clout chasing hot take political influencers. Instagram became the defacto place to go for "exposure and audience" because of the same VC funded, feature cloning BlueSky is about to pursue.

Instagram is intolerable but necessary for many of these folks who put all their eggs in that basket, and that is very sad.

I will not earn another "fell for it again" award this time around.

I am content here on Mastodon with my friends.

Domingos Faria 5d ago

@Gargron Ideally, there should be just one protocol for all social networks, much like SMTP for email. To me, ActivityPub clearly seems like the best protocol for social networks (even though I realize it still has a long way to go).

@_elena @lumiworx

Mike Fraser 5d ago

@Gargron @_elena @lumiworx Same. Just don't have the same confidence anywhere else.

Tyrone Slothrop 5d ago

@_elena in my experience, the main determinant for any technology’s long-term development is how control over it is structured. It’s all a question of power.

Technologies where power is centralized often grow quickly. Some achieve monopoly status, most others die.

Technologies where power is distributed often grow much more slowly. But they’re exceedingly resilient. Over time, many become part of the fabric of society.

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@slothrop @lumiworx absolutely. that's a beautiful way to put it. it reminds me of an analogy that @ozoned made a while ago, comparing the fediverse to Linux.

We don't need EVERYONE in the world to be here to be successful. Slow, organic growth is amazing.

And look at where Linux is now!

LumiWorx 5d ago

@slothrop @_elena @Gargron

I remember a phrase that was drilled into me during college that fits in an oblique way here...

"You can have good, or you can have fast, but you'll never get both."

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@lumiworx @slothrop @Gargron excellent! I personally don't really see the upsides of "fast". Slow, organic growth is great.

As I said to someone else, look at where Linux is now!

Tyrone Slothrop 5d ago

@_elena @lumiworx @Gargron at the individual and business level, there absolutely are strong upsides to rapid growth.

But as a user of technology, I find that systems with distributed power structures are a much better place to invest my time, energy and money.

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Excellent way to put it for sure.

Centralization is easy. You control it all. It's not good for people that want innovation and choice.

Decentralization brings freedom, innovation, choice, but offers a lot of technical roadblocks.

I just want choice. I can choose what's best for my family. I don't need Tim Apple, or whoever to tell me what's good for us, while trapping us into a fish bowl and making us work for our food.

Tyrone Slothrop (@[email protected])

3.21K Posts, 4.09K Following, 2.15K Followers · Bumbling through the technosphere. Easily amused. Messing around with #FOSS, baking #bread, paddling a whitewater #kayak, and #parenting a herd of kids . Sometimes I manage a Hello World without syntax errors in #python. Professionally, I help to build and run #trains with software and IT stuff. Middle-aged cishet white guy, trying not to be an asshole about it. Please let me know if I get it wrong. Ni dios ni amo. Toots auto-delete after 2 weeks. #noindex or I will punch you.

chaos.social

Elena Rossini ⁂5d ago

@ozoned Tim Apple 😂