Diversity is not created by "capitalism"
Many people believe a fat myth of today's world, that capitalism (this trade-based system) is creating diversity. Look at how many chocolates there are, cars, gadgets, software, etc.. But this is a myth. The diversity is in the package/wrapper and not the product itself. Most phones are the same, nothing new for "new releases". Cars brought almost no advantage to transportation overall for the past decades. Products in the supermarket taste quite the same between brands, and clothes are recycled fashion trends. Movies and books are remakes or copy cats of whatever sells best. And so on.
Anyway, here is a search engine we made to showcase how 175 companies own pretty much everything in this world https://www.tromsite.com/tbf/
But I want to focus on 1 particular domain: software.
Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, VK, and maybe 3-4 more, are the ones that are the most used in the world. They do not communicate with each other and are very limited in terms of functionality. It means you choose one or another, or a bunch of them and manage them separately. They are trade-based platforms (you trade your data, currency, attention to them). Full of ads, full of censorship, full of crap overall.
On the other hand the Fediverse is a network of such platforms: Friendica, Mastodon, Peertube, Pixelfed, Funkwhale, and so forth. Look at the diversity here https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/ - these are made by different organizations and enabled by different people. A ton of diversity in terms of options.
These are video platforms, blog platforms, photo sharing platforms, platforms for musicians, live streaming, events, you name it. And all communicate with each other. If some organization has an account with Peertube (video platform) I can follow and interact with them from my social platform Friendica. How amazing! If I have a Peertube account and a Friendica one, I can easily setup so that when I post on Peertube a video, it goes on my Friendica too, as a post. The options are very diverse.
This "fediverse" is created not to be traded but to be shared. You will not find ads on these platforms (at least not on the vast majority of them), or data collection or any of that crap.
The MacOS and Windows vs Linux is yet another example of how diversity is actually achieved when humans do not sell their stuff and themselves, when you have a community of people who share their work and ideas. Linux comes in so many flavors for so many needs and wants. Look at this:
So if you look at software overall, the "capitalism" world, which is the trade-based world in which people make software to trade it (for data, attention, currency, etc.) is like a handful of options. But when the software is created for the sake of creating it and is shared and anyone can copy these, modify, redistribute, as trade-free, then real diversity is created and a better environment emerges overall.
We should take the software example and try to provide other goods/services in the same manner. But to do that we have to decouple humans from the trade-based society. At least when it comes to their basic needs. Else no one can have the time to engage in such things. Software is easy to create and maintain from the comfort of your home and in your space time, but is difficult when it comes to food or other goods and services. In any case there is still and abundance of such trade-free goods/services out there as we showcase here directory.trade-free.org/. But this is not enough.
So. If we want to create a wonderful society, we first have to decouple humans from this trade-based society by at least providing them with their basic needs as trade-free. That creates a good soil for the emergence of lots of trade-free goods/services, in a positive feedback loop. Imagine how much good we can create in this world. Imagine how much real diversity. Imagine how wonderful this could be.
#tromlive
Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •The problem with pure peer to peer is that it means everyone needs to be an server admin. Few people want to deal with those headaches. Few people want to learn even basic beginner's server administration.
Web based client-server applications offload the server headaches onto someone else. Federated platforms offer at least some choice, by making it practical to choose a friendly server admin without somehow also convincing everyone else you care about to also switch.
The bottom line is that pure peer-to-peer systems remain a very obscure niche, while diaspora and Mastodon have demonstrated sustained popularity over time.
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •There's no such thing as "magic happens". Someone has to be administering security on the device.
I'm not familiar with Jami or Manyverse, but Scuttlebutt is a great example of something that's been going nowhere fast.
People like using web based applications because they don't have to install anything. They don't have to worry about figuring out software updates, or managing firewall settings, or security keys. Someone else figures out certificates and identity authentication, and discovery.
And discovery is the real rub. Scuttlebutt isn't pure peer-to-peer, of course. Discovery needs to be handled by pub servers with permanent IP addresses and a more serious server admin and such.
A true peer-to-peer system wouldn't have pubs like that. But how do you make it work? And how do you make it something people will actually want to use?
When it comes right down to it, people are more comfortable with letting that server take care of things, like in diaspora or Mastodon. The half-hearted way Scuttlebutt does things gives you the headaches of both client-server and peer-to-peer.
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •You mean on your device? Yeah, that's the user :).
Actually most people use "apps" nowadays. Whatsapp, Instagram, FB, and so forth. They do insatll them and it is fast.
That's why you have to make the setup easy. Jami does a good job at it. Try it.
Yeah that's why these are not ready yet. But it can be solved with nodes and such.
Similar maybe to how the Bittorrent network works.
Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •"Most people use 'apps' nowadays. Whatsapp, Instagram, FB, and so forth."
Haha. Interesting that you list three commercial for profit centralized systems, all owned by the same person and all for profit for the same person.
The apps you speak of cost money, because they're put into for-profit closed gardens like iOS and Google Play. The ones administering the security on those devices are Apple and Google. It costs them a lot of money to do this. In return, they get lots of profits from their closed garden app stores.
This is a pay-for-play tradeoff, which people accept because they prefer someone else to handle that stuff even at the cost of money, freedom, privacy, and security.
And even if they didn't accept that tradeoff, what choice do they have? If you want to make and receive phone calls, you're basically forced into iOS or Android.
Anyway, you're never going to see a true peer-to-peer system on something like that. It's quintessentially part of a for-profit closed garden system, so anything that doesn't fit in with their centralized con
... Show more..."Most people use 'apps' nowadays. Whatsapp, Instagram, FB, and so forth."
Haha. Interesting that you list three commercial for profit centralized systems, all owned by the same person and all for profit for the same person.
The apps you speak of cost money, because they're put into for-profit closed gardens like iOS and Google Play. The ones administering the security on those devices are Apple and Google. It costs them a lot of money to do this. In return, they get lots of profits from their closed garden app stores.
This is a pay-for-play tradeoff, which people accept because they prefer someone else to handle that stuff even at the cost of money, freedom, privacy, and security.
And even if they didn't accept that tradeoff, what choice do they have? If you want to make and receive phone calls, you're basically forced into iOS or Android.
Anyway, you're never going to see a true peer-to-peer system on something like that. It's quintessentially part of a for-profit closed garden system, so anything that doesn't fit in with their centralized control and profit system gets pulled from the app store.
In contrast, Linux, Windows, and MacOS allow any third parties to run software completely outside of the control of a closed garden. It's possible to publish true open source freeware on these platforms, with anyone distributing their own software. But this comes at a price. For most people, who are only familiar with Windows and maybe MacOS, this means a lot of bizarre headaches trying to figure out software updates, as well as figuring out whose download site to trust. And you just have to trust that whatever mechanism is used for software updates, the ones in charge are on the ball with security updates. Hopefully. With the major Linux distributions, it's different, but bluntly most people aren't using Linux.
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •I don't mean that commercial apps should be p2p.
I mean that an open source freeware p2p can't make it on iOS or Google Play because of the money Apple and Google demand to be in their closed gardens.
Anyway, Scuttlebutt isn't pure peer-to-peer as I noted. In order to actually find anyone else, you need to rely upon fixed IP servers just like diaspora or Mastodon pods. It's completely reliant on the same sort of servers and server admins as diaspora/Mastodon pod servers anyway, just with extra client install requirements.
So, there's not actually any benefit, and significant down side.
Surprise, surprise, Scuttlebutt is a tiny niche compared to diaspora or Mastodon's user base.
If you have some idea of how to make true peer-to-peer work within the existing way the internet works ... well, that would be amazing. As it is, the problem may be intractable.
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •It is different, certainly, but in ways that are reasons why Mastodon is popular and Scuttlebutt is not.
People don't like hosting all the content locally. People don't like needing to have their own server connected 24/7 with bandwidth consumed by others (often costing them a lot of money). People don't like having their IP address published in public.
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •Isaac Kuo
in reply to Tio • • •Well, what can be done to make them popular?
I honestly don't know.
I remember that early on, diaspora was complex and confusing to people, who were largely using Facebook at the time. This complexity and confusion prevented a lot of people from switching over, but enough people gave it a shot anyway because of dissatisfaction with Facebook and a lack of other mature alternatives.
With Mastodon, its popularity was driven by ease of moving from Twitter to Mastodon. It had some interoperability, at least for a critical time for Mastodon to become popular enough on its own.
These two cases are pretty different, but a commonality is mass migration from a popular commercial platform.
Do you envision something similar?
Tio
in reply to Isaac Kuo • •