@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

that's correct. i am not ready for it, and i never will be

because what you're saying is bullshit

the problem is you talk in terms of power and leverage that does exist in a noncapitalist environment

just because mastodon is popular doesn't grant it any power

all someone has to do is write something better and people will flock to that instead. what magical hold do you think mastodon possesses? there is none

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

power has existed since very long before capitalism came to be

mastodon developers make the changes that thousands of instance operators trust blindly, which affect all their users. they also control the largest instance of the fediverse and all of their users.

that is power. not absolute power, but power nevertheless. it doesn't make them prisoners, but it is control over some aspects of their digital lives.

I take it that you're not familiar with the notion of free software, of control over one's own computing, and how ceding it gives others power over your computing and thus your life.

even though mastodon is free software, most mastodon users don't have control over the software that runs the instances they use. this means those who control the instances and the software on them have power over the users.

that power exists even if you don't believe it, even if you call it bullshit.

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

what power?

if twitter does something nefarious, people are trapped, there are no choices

if mastodon does something nefarious, boom: everyone goes to another project

this environment is completely consensual and voluntary

everything is open. the code is open. the fediverse is full of infosec people who would notice shenanigans in an instant

your brain is stuck in business mode. and this is not a business

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

it seems very naïve to me to assume that power only arises in business relationships. have you never heard of abusive relationships that aren't business relationships?

you seem to be projecting your own business prejudices on me. I'm not at all reasoning in terms of business. my reasoning is about community power dynamics.

surely you've heard of network effects. that's one factor. if people were to move to another network, they'd leave their contacts and their post histories behind, just like they do when they leave Xitter behind. that costs them (not money), so they're less likely to take the leap.

even moving to another server within the same network leaves history behind (another discouraging cost), and depends on working interoperable move

since they don't have control over the servers they use, if the server gets so enshittified as to motivate them to want to move out they might find that the changes also prevent them from moving seamlessly to other servers that haven't been so enshittified

this won't get them stuck, but will require them the painful process of rebuilding all of their connections elsewhere. that's another discouraging cost.

as I said, it's not absolute power, but it is power nevertheless. not business power, not capitalist power, but some control over others' lives through the software they use that's not under their own control.

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

"if people were to move to another network, they'd leave their contacts and their post histories behind"

you do understand you can xfer your mastodon account to say, gotosocial? migrate followers? even import your comment history?

you wave your hands and conjure up this dark and stormy menace...

that isn't remotely real

"but some control over others' lives"

none. absolutely none

no lock in

no network effect

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

of course I do. you can transfer it to snac as well. as long as the originating server cooperates. which is only a given as long as it is interoperable. got it?

you need to read up a little (or a lot) more about enshittification and about the nonfree software control tricks that even free software developers sometimes attempt to resort to when they control servers that their users rely on

I sort of wish I could live in your dream world. but it's not real.

not unless you make it so, by exerting the kind of pressure over mastodon that is needed for it to keep interoperable despite the power and the temptations to abuse it.

but I guess that's asking for too much of you, when you can't even see the risk. and then, it's far more comfortable to assume the leopard will never bite your own face, isn't it?

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

you admit you can move your account to another project. but then you allude to vast dark forbidding powers mastodon has... that it doesn't really have. you just allude to them. so there's no substance in your argument

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

you know they (and only they) can change how the server you rely on behaves, right?

I've already told you that they've already broken interoperability a few times

try to think about the consequences of that for a while, instead of going one more time into instant denial. I believe you can do that.

have a good night

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

i'm married

my wife could poison my soup at any time

i don't worry about it because i didn't marry a psychotic murderer

whenever you enter into a relationship, in any conceivable system, you place some kind of trust in another party

mastodon is absolutely capable of doing all sorts of vile nasty things

but they aren't going to do it

because they are decentralized social media

not elon musk in a eugen rochko mask

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

I presume your wife has never poisoned anyone

mastodon has broken interoperability. intentionally. more than once.

they're not the same.

I'm not saying mastodon is like Xitter or F*k

far from it

(it could be bought by them, but I'm not even going there)

but there is a risk, that can be mitigated by not pretending they're angels, and rather realizing they face pressures and they may sometimes come up with rationalizations to break interoperability again.

they know they can because they're dominant, and they've shown they know it by having done it a number of times

users should mount pressure against their making such jerk moves, is what I'm saying

do you by any chance support their making such jerk moves? it fells like maybe you do

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

i don't think they're angels

but i don't think they're demons

and your broken interop argument is suspect to me

new features require new interop. did mastodon prevent the old projects from writing code to work with new features? or did the old projects just kind of decline?

because this argument that interop has to be set in stone is nonsense

interop will always be changing for new features

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@benroyce @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

You should really look at e.g. Friendica on how things can be done WAY‌ better than the way Mastodon has been handling interop since forever.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@oblomov @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

zero argument, i don't know much about friendica. if what you're alluding to is better interop that's wonderful. so more people should flock to friendica

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@benroyce @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137 and that's the thing that you're missing here: they don't, which gives Mastodon overarching power within the Fediverse ecosystem, which they abuse with very little care for interoperability with the rest of the ecosystem. Even where there are signs of improvement, interoperability with other platforms remains an extremely low priority over other features, and this is not healthy for the ecosystem.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@oblomov @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

i blame the ecosystem

if i build a new feature, and it's awesome, and people want it, fuck interop

everyone else should change their code to get in line with the new feature

this idea of "we have to do interop first" means nothing new can be built without buy in from everyone else. there's no governing body, so some project will drag it's heels. so just ignorant them and build it anyway

[lxo@snac.lx.oliva.nom.br]

that's a very naïve view of how interop influences perceptions and choices in a network or market with a dominant player

when the dominant player makes an incompatible change, everyone else is at fault for not keeping up

when someone else makes an incompatible change, nobody moves to it because it can't even talk to the dominant player where nearly all of their friends are

even when the dominant player drops an interop feature, some misguided people will find a way to blame the victims

incompatible features is not the way to evolve an interoperable network; it's the way to fragment it and kill it. the term in standards circles is Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish. you may have come across that before.

CC: @oblomov@sociale.network @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@benroyce @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137 I'm sorry, but that's bullshit AND toxic. You can absolutely have progress AND interop. Whether you choose to do it the ethical way or not tells everything you need to know about the developers.

Every other project has to bend over backwards to be compatible with Mastodon, but Mastodon doesn't even do the bare minimum to be compatible with other platforms. This is basically the definition of abuse of power.

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@oblomov @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

you have no idea what you're talking about. there is no power, because there is no system

you act like this is hierarchy, where mastodon, any project, owes something. they don't owe anyone anything. they do whatever the fuck they want. it's a flat nonsystem

this is open source

yet you think you can ring some office in a structure, complain, and get results

there's no money

there's no boss

understand where you are

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@benroyce @lxo @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

This is bullshit. Power dynamics exist in any context where two or more people or groups interact.

Open sources has nothing to do with it. What really matters are numbers, and you can assess the ethos of developers based on their attitude towards the rest of the ecosystem and whether or not it changes when they are the underdog or not.

Also, *especially* in Mastodon case, there absolutely IS money involved

1/n

[benroyce@mastodon.social]

@lxo @oblomov @Jirikiha @macacator @MyWoolyMastadon @john @engel @everton137

i just don't understand the inability to understand: nobody cares

we do whatever the fuck we want. we answer to no one

and yet you act like there is some sort of structure, obligations, checks and balances

nonsense

this is anarchy. this is open source. no one owes you anything

no company. no salary. no hierachy. just people doing *whatever the fuck they want*

all of your complaints mean nothing