At @Vivaldi we love the Fediverse!

More and more are joining. I urge you all to help your friends join as well!

https://vivaldi.com/blog/social-web-foundation-launches-supported-by-vivaldi/

#fediverse #Mastodon #Twitter #BlueSky #Facebook #Computer #Mozilla

A wealth of real human knowledge lives on reddit, stack exchange, etc-- Given the sheer volume of AI slop and SEO fake pages with "articles" the better content is hard to find. This is most true if looking for help on a subject you know little about.

How could we motivate a collaborative not-for-profit catalog of the better content silo'd off from the commercial web? How to fund it and keep it current?

Basically a *staffed* online library for the world. And not just of books and publications.

I recently discovered an odd first-person maze game called “Lair of Squid” built into my HP 200LX palmtop PC, released in 1994

Then I found the author. Here’s the story of how this quirky Doom-inspired title came to be: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/07/how-i-found-a-forgotten-squid-based-ode-to-doom-on-a-1994-palmtop-pc/

Vintage Arcade Gal is a great blog about the history of arcade gaming.

https://www.vintagearcadegal.com/

I have real world experience with VC, much more than people realize. While I have not had the best experience with them, I am not foolish enough to believe they are entirely avoidable.

De-federating VC-backed Fediverse servers isn’t easy. Even if it were, how many people have actually done it? Will anyone de-federate every server that federates with a VC-backed server too?

And if we’re that serious about avoiding VCs, why are we even using ActivityPub? That, too, was created with some VC-backing.

Even outside the Fediverse, has anyone – at least anyone using the Internet – avoided everything that has ever touched VC money? I have my doubts.

VCs are a lot like oil companies. They’re evil and do terrible things, but – if you live in the modern world – avoiding oil is impossible. We should seek to replace oil with more sustainable energy. However, I’m certainly not going to judge people or small businesses for using oil since it’s near impossible to avoid.

That’s how I feel about VC money. I don’t think it’s sustainable. I wish there were more tech companies that operated as co-ops. I’m certainly, though, not going to judge people for accessing VC capital – especially since so few people are willing to put in the risk to validate alternative forms of financing.

Sadly, the conversation no one wants to talk about is how to finance the Fediverse sustainably. On the contrary, I see a whole lot of people demanding “free” without any awareness of costs. An alternative financing eco-system should exist, but who’s going to build it? There’s not even a crowd-funding platform that’s native to the Fediverse!

People talk about VCs enshittifying things. Sure, it does. But what also enshittifies things is desperation for money and financing. Frankly, even without VC-backing, people are already experiencing enshittification of the Fediverse. That’s only going to continue for as long as people avoid financial sustainability.

RE: https://atomicpoet.org/objects/04e12d7e-a305-4d31-a0e5-1a7d05d37ded

“When asked what the next big thing in social media might be, Professor Angus points to the #Fediverse.

A portmanteau of ‘federation’ and ‘universe’, the fediverse is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other using a common protocol.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-04/what-is-the-future-of-social-media-after-facebook-x-instagram/103789924

Yaknowwhat, it's not by any means ready yet but I'm heading out the door in a minute so I'm just gonna post my #gameDad website and see if it holds up under the Fedi Hug, here ya go lol

https://gamedad.club

hey, it's May day and while we're not yet in a mayday situation, we are asking for your help.

As you may know, MAL is part of the University of Colorado but generally a lot of our funding has come from external donors, and that has contributed to our ability to operate with a little more freedom, do weirder things, be more open and accessible to the general public than most university stuff. but, as these things go, a lot of those donors are shifting their priorities or scaling back.

we want to be able to continue being a resource in the way we have become accustomed to - maintaining our collection in working order as much as possible, offering these tools to artists and scholars and students and the general public, and doing our level best to be as weird as possible about it.

so, while we're looking at grants and other funding modes that we can shift to, we are also asking you all: does your workplace have a philanthropic fund? do you or someone you know have the means to make recurring donations? please consider asking them to contribute to our support fund, or doing so yourself:

https://giving.cu.edu/fund/media-archaeology-lab-support-fund