David ChapmanBut, The Right Thing doesn't exist yet, and this does. So the question for potential users is whether to take the risk of building a following here (and encouraging followers to migrate from twitter) when it could easily fail in any of the usual ways, within days or months. I don't have an opinion yet :)
Sonya Mann@Meaningness I feel pretty torn about this, and also uneasy about this instance's policies w/r/t heterodox thinking
For all users, it's worth checking out the mastodon.social content moderation guidelines, at https://mastodon.social/about/more
As @sonya points out, not everyone may be happy with them.
As our host @Gargron point out, if you don't like them, you can run your own instance.
But instances choose who they peer with... so the Mastodon-based network may balkanize.
I'm starting to think that the right use-case for Mastodon is not as a Twitter alternative (long-term public presence) but as a Slack alternative (private and often short-lived discussion groups, or organizational intranet).
A group is motivated to pay for its own instance so long as it is useful... Who is motivated to operate one as a public service, with years-long commitment?
Andrea@Meaningness subscription-model services are conceivable; the alternative to advertisers paying for platforms is users paying for them
@puellavulnerata I think this OUGHT to have been the model for the whole web all along. It was the original model (Xanadu). It's the right thing.
But almost no one has succeeded because (1) the hassle of signing up for zillions of separate services is too great and (2) everyone got used to "the web is free" and thinks it's a moral affront to be asked to pay for it.
@Meaningness well, most available payment methods also being horrible privacy hazards is also a thing, as is credit cards having way too much trust
@puellavulnerata Yeah. So, then you think "bitcoin!" Except that has all the bitcoin problems.
Hard problem is hard.
@Meaningness bitcoin isn't really very privacy-friendly; zcash has potential though
@puellavulnerata Right... someone needs to draw out the tree of this thought process, because many of us have explored it out quite a number of levels :)
@Meaningness @puellavulnerata
> everyone got used to "the web is free" and thinks it's a moral affront to be asked to pay for it.
IMO this is the wrong way of thinking about it. It's more that if someone can be offered for free and monetized through advertising, it will be, and social networking needs super low friction to scale.
@sonya @Meaningness yeah, it's hard to talk people into paying to try out new things, so the advertising model always has an initial edge. We only get away from it when a smooth migration/coexistence path exists.
@puellavulnerata @Meaningness a lot of pay-to-belong Slacks exist that intrigue me, but I don't want to deal with the hassle of getting a refund if the value isn't actually there