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maegul

@maegul@hachyderm.io

A little bit of computing and a little bit of neuroscience.

he/him/they

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

maegul , to Technology
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Google's play on Search, Ads and AI feels obvious to me.

  • They know search is broken.
  • And that people use AI in part because it takes the ads and SEO crap out.
  • IE, AI is now what Google was in 2000. A simple window onto the internet.
  • Ads/SEO profits will fall with AI.
  • But Google will then just insert shit into AI "answers" for money.
  • Ads managed + up-to-date AI will be their new mote and golden goose.

@technology

See @caseynewton 's blog post: https://mastodon.social/@caseynewton/112442253435702607

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@technology @caseynewton

That search/SEO is broken seems to be part of the game plan here.

It's probably like Russia burning Moscow against Napoleon and a hell of a privilege Google enjoy with their monopoly.

I've seen people opt for chatGPT/AI precisely because it's clean, simple and spam free, because it isn't Google Search.

And as @caseynewton said ... the web is now in managed decline.

For those of us who like it, it's up to us to build what we need for ourselves. Big tech has moved on

maegul , (edited ) to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

The fediverse won’t succeed at putting up a substitute and that’s a problem?

Just an impression: All the pieces seem to be there. But what’s required is a team, with devs, PMs and coordinators, dedicated to making a particular place in the .

That’s resources and decently sized financial and organisational demands, especially to get a critical mass of users.

Is the fediverse up to that challenge? If not, is it an issue worth addressing?

@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@admin

Some, maybe many, hope for the decentralised model of the fediverse to “take back the internet”. Each time a commercial platform “enshitifies“, there are then calls for the fediverse to replace it with a federated alternative, in part to take advantage of the moment of user agitation.

But, IMO, resources and financial support are a touchy topic in the fediverse. If such has lead to a mismatch between ambition and opportunity, and, capability, that may be worth addressing.

maegul ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@ajsadauskas @lemmyreader

Yep! It seems a good Threadiverse ecosystem could be on its way with lemmy etc, nodebb and discourse. Hooking a stack overflow alternative into that could make a lot of sense of kick starting it.

Though at some point UI differences could prove problematic(?)

maegul ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@weirdwriter @ajsadauskas @lemmyreader

Yes, forum platforms too (incl of course).

I do get the (very vague) impression discourse is focusing on integrating well with masto to a good extent and so might not integrate too well with the other Reddit/forum platforms. If true, that might be a good enough reason to start with another base. OTOH, it’s a familiar platform to many devs so adapting it for stackoverflow like use could go well right?

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Nice demonstration of why mastodon's dominance is problematic

See the conversions here:
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/4628
and
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/federating-the-content-of-posts-note-articles-and-character-limits/4087

AFAICT, mastodon's decisions, which are arguably problematic (on which see: https://lemmy.ml/post/14973403) are literally trickling down to other platforms and infecting how they federate with each other as they dance around mastodon's quirks in different ways.

It seems like masto is ruining "the standard" with its gravity.


@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Trainguyrom

Ha
AFAIU, two platforms other than mastodon (lemmy and discourse) have issues federating because at least one of them is trying federate well with mastodon (for obvious reasons). The mastodon quirk causing issues is, AFAIU, the way it kinda mangles articles and pages (long form formats in ActivityPub), which are appropriate for forums and link-aggregators like lemmy and discourse. So someone hints been done to work well with mastodon’s mangling, which hurts lemmy-discourse interop

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@p03locke

Yep, yep and ... yep!

maegul , (edited ) to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Reflecting on the firefish/calckey "moment"

which was about a year ago now, I can't help but suspect it was a small event with wider implications on the dominance of in the

I think it was the last chance to direct the twitter migration energy into discovering new/different fedi platforms.

And it was blown, with alt-social in a weird steady/waiting state that's smaller I suspect, than what many hoped for.

@fediverse

cntd: https://hachyderm.io/@maegul/112358202238795371

1/

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

People are actually on BlueSky

There's now a decent measurement of user numbers (https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.dev/bsky_users_total.html) ...

They've got about 1.6M MAUs ...
& 0.8M Weekly unique users & 0.340M Daily.

That's not nothing!

Roughly double mastodon and 60% more than the whole fediverse (by MAUs, see fedidb.org).

Bluesky is quite "international" with large Japanese and Brazilian popltns, and there's real attrition happening IMO.

Still, let the protocol wars begin I suppose?

@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

LOL ... yea plenty right.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@anderseknert @fediverse

Fair (kinda the simple explanation why I'm anti-threads-federation).

While I'm no BlueSky-stan, the idea/promise of the system is a hybrid, which I think is generally worthwhile (especially while things like twitter and threads dominate) but also interesting.

How hybridised it becomes (and can become) is the question though with big outstanding questions.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Comparatively, it's definitely a lot more into shitposting vibes, for sure.

I think their biggest problem right now is they don't have good community self-organising features (nor masto, but the boost culture corrects for that IMO), so those who want more serious sub-cultures aren't getting much footing (and may never).

Feeds are interesting but not very fruitful IMO and hashtags are new, so it's a bit flat community-wise there, and many users are "wait & see" I suspect.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Loukas @fediverse

Agreed (and said the same myself)!

As I've said it ... alternative social has run its course in this post-musk-twitter moment. Everyone's settled down where they ended up.

And yea, either more major disruption or some new killer features (rather than clones of big social) will be needed to shake things up. Neither seem particularly likely in the short term ... your EU-meta smackdown is probably the best bet??

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Plugins for fediverse platforms.

Where is this up to? Is anyone thinking along these lines?

I've seen @db0 espouse such (eg https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/8581651) (sorry for the tag if annoying).

I've certainly thought of it myself ... because it's a pretty obvious idea for an ecosystem aiming for richness and sustainability.

Seems a perfect fit for reusable moderation tooling too, rather than each new platforms having that trouble.

This is essentially 's idea it seems.

@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@box464 @db0 @fediverse

I’d forgotten about them (firefish/Misskey plugins) actually (we probably saw each other over on firefish “back in the day”).

ajsadauskas , to Fuck Cars
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?

A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.

Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I'm not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.

How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?

@fuck_cars

maegul ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars

In pretty central … all of them except I think a gas station.

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Mastodon CVE Report

Didn't expect the mastodon CVE report/account would kinda end up being about platform diversity on the fediverse (TLDR: only mastodon really had the problem, which was huge)

https://arcanican.is/excerpts/cve-2024-23832/discovery.htm

@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@skullgiver

The point though is that not all platforms had the problem, which means platform diversity would have lessened the significance.

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

The Fedipact statistics are interesting

7% of active users committed to - https://fedidb.org/current-events/anti-meta-fedi-pact

  • How representative of the user base is this, or are admins gatekeeping here? A large survey would be good to clear that up.

  • EG, Mastodon, relative to its userbase, seems the most "Meta friendly" with only 57% of fedipact users (but ~80% all users)

  • Fractal of niche-dom? Fedi ~1% of social media, fedi-pact ~ 10% of fedi. So anti-meta-fediverse ~0.1%?

@fediverse
@fediversenews

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@ada

Interesting! Cool to know that the actual number is higher than 7%.

In the end though how likely are Threads/Meta to not have hategroups?

Would it be a good idea to have a more accurate (and therefore higher) number on how many Threads defeds there are?

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Decent Decentralisation

https://berjon.com/decent-imaginaries/

Good counter to the focus on protocols.

> a protocol needs to achieve two things: it needs to prevent the accumulation of power imbalances between parties … and it needs to make it easy for users to cooperate in building the the rules they want for how the protocol's operation affects them … the success of decentralisation and … of a democratic digital world rides not only on liberation but also on organising.

@fediverse

By @robin

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@poVoq

Perhaps a totally fair critique.

But for me the instance node in the Fedi binds many things together however much their governance aims to be democratic: username, platform, defed policies, moderation, user data (ie posts).

maegul , to Fediverse
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Is decentralised federated social media over engineered?

Can't get this brain fart out of my head.

What would the simplest, FOSS, alternative look like and would it be worth it?

Quick thoughts:

  • FOSS platforms intended to be big single servers, but dedicated to ...
  • Shared/Single Sign On
  • Easy cross posting
  • Enabling and building universal Multi-platform clients.
  • Unlike email, supporting small servers

No duplication/federation/protocol required, just software.


@fediverse

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@fediverse

All of the shared/single sign on and easy cross posting would probably be trust or allow-list based.

As the platforms would be FOSS, anyone could run their own instance and start their own "circles of trust". So even with big vs small server friction, there could be a few "gardens" of small and big server networks providing different "spaces" for different purposes ... all without having to worry about defederation and the software difficulties of building against the protocol.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@joeldebruijn

Quick attempt at coming up with an alternative.

Something to bear in mind here is it’s my impression that federation creates difficulties that many struggle with. So while it might be over simplified, the scale for me is already weighed with the possibility that we over complication that may need to be remedied.

Also, that big instances (eg mastodon.social) seem to be a natural thing even on the Fedi, there’s clearly perceived value for many there.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@joeldebruijn

Yep. Add a good aggregator client (hmmm, Google should make one) and you’re cooking.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Aatube @1984 @mindlight @maegul

Yea I don’t know the best approach to that. Either a separate server for managing IDs. Or you always a principal server that manages authentication for its platform and others within the trusted “circle”. And then, should the principal server fail, you can switch to another server as your principal. Hubzilla/Streams has some process like that AFAIK.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@Aatube @1984 @mindlight @maegul

The key idea is that you can have a single unified identity on all the platforms you want. Signing into multiple platforms doesn’t require a new account every time. And cross posting from one platform to another, under your single identity is easy from every platform.

Then leveraging those features (and an open API), a good unifying client will make that easy.

There must be a way of doing that without fatal security issues or decentralisation.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

@strife @joeldebruijn

Yea this is the essence of the idea. Strip down the interop requirements as much as possible, relying on existing tech as much as possible, and allow software and norms to solve all the other problems, where, TBF, it seems that software is doing all the heavy lifting in the fediverse anyway, but also has to handle federation and the protocol.

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