Although #mastodon is the elephant in the room (see what I did there), the #fediverse is way more than just that. I want to look at other ways to engage with the wider Fediverse, just for fun and my own education. I have a #pixelfed account that I never use but maybe I'll move all my image posting to it and just repost it here, etc. Still mulling.
@nosaj Oh absolutely, but everyone who follows my Mastodon may not also follow my Pixelfed since theyโre different servers etc. The Achilles Heel of the Fediverse has always been no single portable identity. Glad to see folks smarter than me now talking about that ๐
I noticed the company who wanted to add their service directly into Owncast, and I said no, started releasing their own version of Owncast with their own changes in it to support this use case.
I'm not sure how to feel about this. It's kind of a fork, but it's really just another release of Owncast by somebody else. They're releasing something called Owncast with functionality and decisions that have nothing to do with the real Owncast. It specifically says stuff like "Owncast does X", and Owncast does not do X, and will never do X. Only their changes do X.
I fear this may confuse people. If something goes wrong with their version of the software, people are going to ask me for support, and might make the real Owncast look bad. But I don't know if this is wrong, or if this is completely acceptable. It's open source, and the name "Owncast" isn't owned by anybody, as Owncast is an open source project, not a company. So I guess they have the right to do whatever they want and call it Owncast.
But it feels wrong, and it seems like really bad things could come of this.
@gabek Huh. As itโs open source they absolutely can fork it and do whatever they feel but specifically calling it Owncast or calling out what they feel is Owncastโs shortcomings is shitty behaviour, even if not โlegallyโ wrong. That in itself is enough reason to avoid them. Feels like bad faith.
95% of my time on #Bluesky is muting either super horny art (no shade, just not my thing) or minor celebrities/wannabes who are utterly convinced everyone will love their edgelordy Hot Take.
I know itโs working for some people but Iโm just not a target for either thing theyโre trafficking.
Related: one of the more strangely difficult things Iโve had to do as a small business owner is recognize when a social media platform was doing me more mental/emotional harm than it was benefitting the business and drop it.
#Mastodon and the #Fediverse are the polar opposite. They do absolutely nothing for my business but I enjoy being on them and believe in what they stand for. Theyโre not perfect, but nothing ever is.
You should be proud of me. Someone in a Discord Iโm on was all like โHey, AI lets me make a decent โpaintingโ of something without having to commission it and thatโs cool!โ and I didnโt engage and start a fight with some random stranger. Proud of myself and my new elevated blood pressure.
I will say here though, cuz I know I have a sympathetic ear in The Fediverse, that if we as a society valued people more than things, the AI โdebateโ wouldnโt be happening at all.
They want the art, but they donโt want to pay people to make the art. Itโs 100% an ethical issue.
@operationpuppet
Mind if I ask what b2b services you use to support your work? I'm a big fan of garage and cottage industry and makers, and I wonder how to expand the market in all ways. I'd go work at a company doing such.
@travisfw In terms of supply, there arenโt a lot of options for what I do. Big fabric stores and specialty shops tend to be it. For payment processing I use WooCommerce on my own site, which Iโve been happy with. I also have an Etsy shop but try to get folks to buy from my direct shop because Etsy is terrible with fee gouging.
I adore #Mastodon but Iโve noticed a steep decline in what marketing types call โengagementโ here. I think thereโs been a real drop-off in active users.
No force in the universe will get me to go back to Musky Boyโs bird/Chan but I fear Iโll have to unfreeze the Facebook page for my business.
I hate corporate social media but my tiny business needs the eyeballs. Still feels like a defeat ๐ข