tomw

tomw, 1 year ago to random

It is annoying that every time Mastodon is made a little bit easier to use, you get these viral posts from high-follower accounts about "threat to the fediverse!!!"

Yes, choosing a server isn't the biggest barrier in the world. But from where I'm sitting, the problem is that many people hesitate for a long time at that step and so never sign up.

You're not helping the health of the fediverse overall by fighting pitched battles against every small UX feature.

nix, 1 year ago to random

Question for everyone, but especially people who aren't in tech: What FOSS software do you use daily? Firefox is the most obvious example in mind of something that's reached the masses, but what else?

tomw, 1 year ago to random

Now that birdsite (real) blue ticks are gone, can we quietly agree that they were a terrible idea, and shouldn't be added to future systems?

Impersonation was a real problem, but the answer to it ended up being to create a status symbol that people craved, mostly not for the purpose of avoiding impersonation, but as validation of their own notability. A lot of nonsense ensued.

tante, 1 year ago to random

The "AI" hype has lead to a weird shift in some developers' minds: Everything used to be about being efficient, people laughed at me for mostly using python because it was too slow and too wasteful. Now it's just "yeah if we throw more data into this thing it probably can do math". Sure it can but at what cost?

Saying "But everyone can run neural networks on their machine" misses the mark: These things usually only run on expensive hardware not "everyone", not even most have access to.

That's why the promises of "democratization" (always a red flag that word) ring so so hollow: Rich people can buy access to the best commercial networks, rich developers can set this stuff up on their hardware. But that's just reinforcing the privilege of those already the "tech upper class".

aral, 1 year ago to fediverse

Dear @Gargron,

Please reevaluate your decision to incentivise centralisation on mastodon.social in the official app.

This is the sort of design a VC-funded startup would implement, not a non-profit acting in the interests of a healthy commons.

I’m sure you don’t want mastodon.social to become mini-Twitter and you don’t want to become mini-Musk.

That’s not how we win this.

More instances, not larger instances is the key.

https://mastodon.ar.al/@feditips@mstdn.social/110233282943673558

#decentralisation #fediverse #staySmall