this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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His grand vision remains to leave Mastodon users in control of the social network, making their own decisions about what content is allowed or what appears in their timelines.

I don't use Mastadon cause I don't care for micro-blogging, but nevertheless, I like this.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago

We should not expect greatness from the men who create these corporations, they are not great men, they are not even good or especially intelligent men. They fell into their position by luck, the one in a million triers for whom circumstance clicked into position. The only thing that sets them apart and perhaps accounts for their success is how they are so consistently open to sycophancy and manipulation by the pack of cold and savage business graduates that flock to any form of success. When a person is against type, as seemingly is the case here, they stand out and just once in a while are capable of real greatness.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just like what happened with Ecosia. We need more humble people in the world!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The blog discussed progress on a "privacy-respecting search tool" that could be used to explore the entire Fediverse, a collection of independent social media networks that Mastodon connects to. That could make it possible to discover more content without depending on a "For You" algorithm mining user data.

Inshallah. Lack of search is my biggest gripe with Mastodon.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The Internet needs fewer Stalins and Hitlers and more George Washingtons.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

Yeah, it's refreshing to see someone not be an Absolute Dick™ on the internet for profit.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 days ago (1 children)

More slave owners it is then!

[–] [email protected] 45 points 2 days ago (2 children)

It is an imperfect system, but my comment was more about leaders not clinging to power to the detriment of society.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Fuck yeah RTJ

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago

I was just kidding. I understand what you meant. Monkey paw wish. Lol

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Like it, like Bluesky too, uninstall Twitter after using these apps for several days.

Reject any app that has an forced automated recommendation system

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I do wonder what prevents BlueSky from going the way Twitter did, though.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Bluesky is still running on VC cash. We haven't seen how they plan on monetizing it yet, but if anything that is where their major fuckup will happen.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Absolutely nothing. I fully expect it to follow a similar trajectory.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If lemmy ever catches on ^doubt it'll be a reddit fractal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

^doubt

You need to do double caret ^doubt^ for the proper ^formatting^. Yeah, the markdown is a bit weird. lol

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

That's a red herring, they still have full control of the network.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

You still have to go through the central hub. You can't spin up your own, wholly independent Bluesky. You can only make your own node.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

It’s not something where any one person can really host their own instance long term — though people still do (for now). But AtProto is designed so a reasonably-sized company (or maybe a well-funded foundation) can host their own instance and either make a clone or do something novel.

As I understand it, the core difference is just the scale of what you’d have to host. ActivityPub only downloads what users on an instance interact with so you could easily run your own one-person instance on a home computer. A BlueSky instance downloads everything so you’d essentially need the scale of BlueSky (which is already in the terabytes)

The upside to AtProto for users is that your username and content are all portable and you can switch providers (or even use multiple) and not lose anything. ActivityPub’s downside is that it can leave you at the mercy of your admin. Not a big deal on the main instances but there’s been some drama moments where some admin freaked out and those users essentially lost their account.

AtProto/BlueSky was originally envisioned (pre-Musk) as Twitter being semi-decentralized so it’d essentially be the hub of a wider ecosystem. But, obviously, the world’s worst truck designer had other plans.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

This is not true.

The App view, relay, PDS, and mobile app, code is all open source. Anyone can spin up their own version if they want.

If you want a complete copy of bluesky (reflecting the bluesky post firehose) it's prohibitively expensive, but you can spin up your own version if you want.

The only thing that's missing is bluesky federating anything other than PDSes by default, but you can 100% go in the other direction.

A good overview is here: What bluesky is and what bluesky is not

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Yes, it’s not a full web3 app, but I like that these apps are heading in the right direction.

However it's better than Twitter/Instagram. I can control my feed!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Twitter also looked great until it didn't, it even comes from the same guy.

While at this moment BlueSky looks good, we will end up the same way sooner or later. Muskov et. al. figured out how to monetize social media. Now Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and others are tools to manufacture opinion. And certain opinions are worth a lot to certain people.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Until they build "The Algorithm" to "help you" find what ~~you~~ they want you to see or not.

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[–] [email protected] 196 points 2 days ago (5 children)

While this is a good move, I don't think John Mastodon was making anywhere near the kind of money to turn into the next Musk or Zuck to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can see exactly what he made in 2023. The report is available here.

€60k

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 days ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not now, but in the future that was a possibility.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean in the future it's a possibility I'll be fucking Zendaya but that doesn't mean it's reality now does it?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you in a space/career where you could conceivably interact with Zendaya?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I don't get it. Mastodon is already huge with millions of users and hundreds of instances. Rochko is already on speaking terms with Zendaya, if you will.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

mass market media can only understand the world through the lens of mass market media

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[–] [email protected] 133 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I have recently been using it more to connect with others on a new subject, but now for the first time ever on the internet since early 00's, we are all owners of it ourselves. All the great new stuff was always owned by others and frankly I'm sick of it.

I never even liked twitter. Then I followed #nature and #bloomscrolling on mastodon for a while and my home feed was a feast of beautiful pics. So now there's one use for me for microblogging. Neat! Mastodon does what it says it does and even offers 'default' instances. I'd love for some GO's to help reach that donation goal quicker, so we can all get with the program and ditch corpo social media. -Why doesn't my library host it's own peertube?? #MakeLibrariesGreatAgain

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