I’m not the most on point as far as keeping up with the internet so possibly it is actually happening, but I have not yet identified a direct challenge to Facebook from the fediverse that has been settled on by those already here....
You’ve basically elucidated my working hypothesis as to why there is not a prominent FB competitor already - someone already mentioned Friendica, and I had heard of that, and I think gnusocial is another one. But this absolutely is precisely why this will be the hardest to replace. Every other platform just needs users, this one needs to connect to the people you actually care about, and indeed, our grandparents and such are not gonna be enthusiastic about something that’s more difficult to use.
The Federation. Everyone who has made the choice to move away from silos and into a community-based paradigm. Like I said, I am pretty sure most of us over a certain age were there at one time.
Like, context, last month when I was on Mastodon and the great argument about whether to federate with Meta happened, I was very much on the “fuck no not ever” team. In terms of opening the federated door to them, I can think of many ways that ends horribly for us but not so many where it actually hurts them. So it’s not that I discount the danger they represent to anyone who interfaces any part of themselves with their products.
But a Federation that directly competes with the constructive parts of Facebook’s social infrastructure (mainly, connections to family/friends and groups for local communities/events), and tries to be as easy to use, with no interfacing directly with facebook, I don’t see the risk, other than, they will obviously send their hooligans, but I don’t see what they can do if we just say no.
I’m still gonna be watching the Threads plot unfold, they forced a good opening but apparently it’s petered off, and they no longer have infinite capital to throw around for Ubering.
None whatsoever, other than, I actually was enjoying Mastodon for about two weeks and then two Twitter exodi brought a flood what I can only describe as twitthink, so I definitely know how a userbase can fundamentally alter the character of a community in a relative heartbeat.
I’m sure there’s all sorts of well-thought-out technical reasons why it can’t work that I haven’t thought of, but in all honesty I don’t find such ministrations very compelling. Fundamentally, I do still believe in the ability of groups of well-informed and competent people to pull things off.
But again, aside from the stuff I already thought about like server loads, traffic management, all the problems of federation that we’re already aware of, what I’m specifically wondering if I’m missing, is, are there risks specific to going up against FB that are different risks from what we’re already doing to the other sites?
Well, I just spent about ten minutes typing out a few thoughts in response but we’re also getting a momentary lesson that nothing comes without work or money - Lemmy.world is running slow right now, and my post went down the memory hole, it seems. It might resurface, I don’t quite understand these servers yet.
We are in difficult, choppy waters, and will be for some time. We gave up the smooth ride when we left the safety of the corporate silo, where eveyrthing is paved and painted for us.
edit: speaking strictly for me, it’s good to be home.
Duplicating the function of FB as it is, it seems to me, is entirely off the table, and bandwidth/egress costs are the primary reason, with no real solution that actually replicates their level of reach. On that, we entirely agree.
But, who says the media you’re sharing needs that much reach? People definitely would need to be able to post video - good video - of their kids’ recitals and whatnot, for viewing by those who want to watch a video of a child’s recital. That group of people, however, consists of immediate friends, family, teammates, teachers, etc. It’s an amount of bandwidth that you could handle in your own email account.
Again, what I’m proposing we ought to be doing, is identifying and speccing out the actual, constructive social benefit of Facebook’s specific social infrastructure, and ideally remove all toxic elements (privacy etc), and then look at what resources are required to achieve that subset of Facebook’s current range of functionalities. In the example of posting your kid’s recital, the assumption that you need Facebook’s servers to achieve that is not a correct one - as I said, a simple group email will get the media to everyone in your immediate circle with great efficiency. Even just a webhook script could format that payload for easy viewing.
Hell, more I think about it, duplicating the good parts of Facebook actually looks easier and easier… (edit: on a purely tech level, assuming usage to network with close real world connections only - this is the stated reason why all of my friends who are still there, are still there)
Make sure to get one of the modernized version of Myst, I think they’re up to about 27 or so revisions/redos. Don’t be afraid to try clues, but in all honesty the puzzles in Myst are pretty solvable by Adventure game standards.
Riven (II) and Exile (III) are both likewise excellent, with Brad Dourif as a bonus in the third. After that, different people took over and things got awful.
I’m a fanboy, I couldn’t pick one of the first three, they go together like one seamless game if you ask me. Again, just pretend the series ends there. :>
Every system is perfectly designed to produce its observed results.
I don’t know if you strung that set of words together yourself or read it somewhere, but I had never quite heard it put that way before. Very succinct. Sorry, I’m very into language, sentences are like flowers to me and that’s a particularly nice blossom.
Re “conservatives,” it’s an extremely frustrating word because of how it’s been misused. I took Intro PoliSci once, my teacher was an open Marxist like me, and he taught us a non-loaded, non-controversial, non-toxic definition of political Conservatism - it was along the lines of, “Conservatives believe that societal change should be done slowly, with careful consideration, with as little disruption to the existing society as possible.” - and in all honesty, I once knew a few people who fit that description pretty good. They are long dead now, and I considered them devils at the time we knew each other, but I wish they were around right now, because I know we would all pretty much agree about all this bullshit - we spent a lot of time debating in places like this, and we got into a lot of what ifs. I don’t believe any of them would pinch their nose for the current leader of our (Canadian) Tories.
I’m not saying, if we were to apply your maxim about “observed results” to the matter, that that is what Conservatism is “perfectly designed” to do, but that’s more or less what the word actually means, and what the traditional branding of Conservatism has been; neither a desire to anachronistically cosplay the worst parts of the past, nor a desire to pointlessly harm life (another word they have barbarized to the point of uselessness), is actually an ideological feature of the traditional Conservative political body. In the 1950s the SBC approved of abortion. Look it up if you don’t believe me - there was once a time when they really did believe that life was precious. Jimmy Carter was one of em.
It’s the most fundamental aspect of how the modern Right uses routine gaslighting to sell their baldfaced neo-aristrocrat sceheme, because whatever individual opinions modern Conservatism might share with the GOP Nixon admin that started the EPA - an institution with a foundational intent so thoroughly conservative that they should be running CPAC - they are the ones attempting to radically change society in as short a time as possible.
If we go back to my Marxist professor’s definition, my Marxist ass is generally the most conservative one in most of the rooms I occupy.
I’ve resisted right up until this moment embracing this viewpoint, but I think we really have reached a point where every one of the old labels has lost all utility. We’re just sort of passing around paper mache cargo cult effigies of things our grandparents took for granted and didn’t bother to preserve for us.
The thing about that is, if they’re ignorant, their kids will be ignorant too. And what that adds up to is just the same thing we’ve got: a large group of people who are subject to whatever momentary persuasion happens to reach them on any given day, and a political/ruling class that can work with that just fine, so they are taking steps to hamper education sufficiently that this can endure for an indeterminate amount of time before we all burn.
What those large populations do react to, is missing a meal or three. And so far, these aristocrats seem to understand that whatever else they try to pull, they must always service the fundamentals: bread and circuses.
I gleefully ride the wave of your disdain. At the same time, I do think that we need to provide a path for people to come back, even if only a very faint one. :>
Cooper has a nodding acquaintance with old time showbiz - you can see elements of Vaudeville as well as some of the more radical musical theatre in his stuff, and he’s had excellent work ethics the whole time. I always found it amazing that the metal magazines used to write about him golfing with Bob Hope and totally approving. Alice can do no wrong.
Hi, currently three years into a job title that indicates I program for a living (it sounds more like I’m a manager). I do Python professionally and work on learning C. It… it kinds gets worse, if you go this far, but you’re more able to handle it.
I was introduced to remote debugging a few weeks ago. I had heard of it and it sounded neat, but it’s so much better than I could possibly have imagined.
Maybe it’s just because there’s less content on Lemmy as of right now, but I remember doomscrolling Reddit, but now I only briefly open Lemmy once or twice a day....
The splintering, the difficulty of the federation relative to the easy UX of the silos, the normal pickup time of any new thing on the internet, but most of all, [unlike Reddit and every other platform], there is nothing in the server code which is designed to keep you here. Go play with your cat, and post a video of it.
Why have we not done a federated Facebook replacement yet?
I’m not the most on point as far as keeping up with the internet so possibly it is actually happening, but I have not yet identified a direct challenge to Facebook from the fediverse that has been settled on by those already here....
Republicans Want To Make It Harder to Vote and Easier to Cheat (www.democracydocket.com)
Miiiiiiiiiiiiiist
I've noticed that lemmy as a whole is much more leftist than reddit (outside of political servers of course)
I can’t really think of a reason for that as Reddit is hated somewhat equally by “both” sides of the spectrum. It’s just something I find interesting.
Crappy band removes guitarist from photo when he can no longer perform due to healh reasons (lemmy.world)
With seemingly at least one new app announced per day.... (thelemmy.club)
Malaysia halts music festival after same-sex kiss by UK band The 1975 (www.reuters.com)
I feel like I'm spending less time on social media after switching to Lemmy
Maybe it’s just because there’s less content on Lemmy as of right now, but I remember doomscrolling Reddit, but now I only briefly open Lemmy once or twice a day....