A lot of questions on here are aimed at the reddit users experiences, but I’ve been wondering what the older users thought of his move. Are there any reddit cultures you are hoping do not come with the users? Are you confident or fearful of the growth coming from the reddit community? I’m curious how the reddit influx is changing these communities either for better or for worse.
Do you think open source and free information for all mindsets can’t also believe in capitalism? If lemmy.ml was explicitly anticapitalist but they lost their identity due to the flood of new users like me then that’s regretable, but I wonder if you just don’t want capitalists on decentralized services or not.
A pro-capitalist can absolutely value OS and freedom of information! But there is inherent tension. For one part, private property is a fundamental cornerstone of capitalism, which (I assert necessarily) led to the invention of intellectual property, a direct inhibition to freedom of information. FoI is not within the best interests of any leading business under capitalism, they have an active interest in maintaining market dominance, and the most power to make that happen through harassment or legislation. So, as a result, we get laws like copyright and major government agencies enforcing it even for things like films and medicine. Piracy like LibGen happen in spite of the worldwide attempts of publishers to destroy it.
Wolfballs admin was an example of a pro-FOSS (Lemmy-contributer!) capitalist who was able to provide benefit to with the project because they shared pro-FoI values. I’m not saying pro-capitalists can’t have a place here, or can’t add value, but a huge influx and culture shock is the quickest way for Lemmy sites to forget or misdiagnose the causes of reddit’s failure and the strengths of Lemmy, and try to turn it into an ad-infested crypto-integrated hellscape or otherwise put profit above users. Even basic things like using an advertising income model creates censorship (Manufacturing Consent has a good section explaining this in detail).
Anti-capitalism is deeply rooted in lemmy.ml, and Lemmy, it’s even brought up in the software documentation. It’s not incidental or trivial, it is the cause for many effects. It’s a big part of why we didn’t do what other reddit alternatives did, and avoided their pitfalls. I don’t want to be a product here. So yes, it is sad to see that shift into conflict with the software and community’s founding values, and it’s not just because of some team sports, it’s because profit-seeking is what killed reddit and I don’t want it to kill us.
Thank you for your detailed answer. That makes sense. I also don’t like when things are commercialized and would rather have something like lemmy instances be either a co-op or funded by donations.
I think they were lamenting the fact that people don’t seem to recognize why capitalism’s inherent forces tend to cause enshittification of services. That it’s not just a bad CEO that causes this but the inevitable squeeze that will happens where user good-will is exchanged for money. This is why hopping from privately owned central service to another will not solve that problem… but decentralized services that are not owned by any single agent (and therefore can’t be bought, can’t be turned into value for investors) can resist it.
It’s good to see people here, good to see people protesting and taking control. So, I welcome you (if that amounts to anything :D) However, I wish people also take stock and ponder why social media service after another turns into crap… :)
I think most hackers, at least in the past, were anarcho-capitalists or crypto-anarchists.
I’d say most hackers were anarchic full-stop. Most probably without any analysis of economic systems, merely a distaste for rules or authority. It’s intrinsic in the act of hacking.
There is certainly a huge influence from (socialist) anarchists, such as zine culture and other punk influence, and rejection of intellectual property (e.g. piracy). “Anarcho-capitalism”, as far as I can interpret, is founded on a respect for property and non-aggression. Hacking is possibly the opposite.
Cyberpunk culture, especially historically but even today despite recuperation, is a direct critique of capitalism-without-government, or where the corporate has become the government, depicting it as a dystopia.