There are certain inevitable trends among social media platforms thus far. Commercial Social Media Platforms "CSMPs" seek to attract as many eyeballs as possible, as well as harvest data, creating an attractive product for advertisers. Controversy drives engagement. This creates highly perverse incentives and dishonest practices.
Trust in CSMPs is irrevocably eroded . Meta/Facebook is a dumpster fire. Musk's purchase of Twitter has rendered a barely profitable mess into a debt-soaked sinking ship. It is clear that these models are failing.
CSMPs also seek to become exclusive walled-gardens to, again, retain users' data and eyeballs. We liken this to the Online Service Providers of old (AOL, Compuserv, Prodigy, etc.). The World Wide Web challenged this model and rendered it laughably obsolete.
The Fediverse's role is analogous with regard to CSMPs. Fedi is inherently interoperable and scalable in a way that CSMPs cannot swiftly address. This is as profound as ISPs and the web were to the irrelevance of walled-garden OSPs.
Now here's where the important bit c
... show moreThere are certain inevitable trends among social media platforms thus far. Commercial Social Media Platforms "CSMPs" seek to attract as many eyeballs as possible, as well as harvest data, creating an attractive product for advertisers. Controversy drives engagement. This creates highly perverse incentives and dishonest practices.
Trust in CSMPs is irrevocably eroded . Meta/Facebook is a dumpster fire. Musk's purchase of Twitter has rendered a barely profitable mess into a debt-soaked sinking ship. It is clear that these models are failing.
CSMPs also seek to become exclusive walled-gardens to, again, retain users' data and eyeballs. We liken this to the Online Service Providers of old (AOL, Compuserv, Prodigy, etc.). The World Wide Web challenged this model and rendered it laughably obsolete.
The Fediverse's role is analogous with regard to CSMPs. Fedi is inherently interoperable and scalable in a way that CSMPs cannot swiftly address. This is as profound as ISPs and the web were to the irrelevance of walled-garden OSPs.
Now here's where the important bit comes in: Federated platforms will evolve to become the norm. Anarchistic organizing and dispute resolution, in a space that disincentives status quo propaganda (commercial, religious, political) is a real game changer. The road ahead is very exciting for us all.
