@eileenb As @woozle noted, when epistemic (media) systems gain significance, the attract attention:

"Because of a high percentage of the population being present, there is now substantial power to be had by influencing the discussions that take place."

Or more accurately: as there are /returns/ to influencing an audience, those influencers will appear: direct & brand marketing, propagandists, polemicists.

So yes, the brands ... will come, like it or not.

https://redd.it/5wg0hp

@woozle @eileenb I see a fairly common progression of interests within a new media channel. Not necessarily in the following order, but close:

1. Technicians -- "shop talk"
2. Artistics and creatives, avant garde.
3. Organisations for internal use: business, government, academia, religion, etc.
4. External comms, management, monitoring, discussion.
5. Direct marketing.
6. Mass entertainment.
7. Mass marketing.
8. Propaganda and polemicists.

Merely changing platforms changes nothing.

@will Sure, but it also depends on those elements' capacities to change the rules themselves.

Bob Dylan: "Money doesn't shout, it swears."

Informational activities which are subsidised by, or reward, financial interests, or political interests, have a capacity to dominate pretty much anything else. Epistemic systems whose incentivisation is /anything but/ seeking deeper truth ... will return that, and /not/ truth.

RAW: Celine's 2nd law.

@woozle @eileenb

@dredmorbius @woozle @eileenb but like, if I run my own email server with me and 100 of my friends, and #brands are annoying, I'll just add them to my spam filter, ya know? This is a semi-solved problem.

The key, as usual, is for spammers to act like they're not spammy so people don't ignore/block/unfollow them. But by giving the power of instance creation to people, there's always an escape chute.

@will Check your priors: /if/ you run your own email server:

* You can afford a server. OK, falling bar, Raspberry Pi, $5, falling 10x per decade
* You can afford a broadband connection. Not ... too unreasonable
* Persistant network connection and address. This is a complexity bar
* Systems administration. Now we're at 5-8% of the population or less. Likely /much/ less. (OECD computer skills survey)
* Systems security
* Spam and abuse
* Content liability

Who can do this?

@dredmorbius @will
Is the bar "who can run an email server" or "who can run an email server that isn't shitty, insecure, and bound to become a spampot"?

Because in the former case, only the first three points count. (I.e., anybody with $5 and a broadband connection can run their own whatever server.)