Sometimes, these companies" (big tech) "really are looking out for your interests. They have armies of moderators and security experts who block innumerable threats to your data, your identity, and your physical safety. But those companies will never block you from their own leadership: when your interests conflict with their plans, the fortress walls that keep bad guys out become prison walls that lock you in.
I know that this was a pretty popular article on the fediverse, but i just think its so well written.
What a well written paragraph. I love the analogy with fiddler on the roof as well. Subject matter is of course interesting to a denizen of AZ.
Feeling this. There’s always text and email but with it being less convenient not many will remember to keep it up. And pretty much all the other main social media are enshittening too.
I miss the days of forums. Reddit was and now Lemmy is the closest I can find to that
Not that i dislike Lemmy, (i like to think my usage speaks for itself), but i’ll be interested to see if there are other formats of social media that come out of this ‘not necessarily commercial’ space that weren’t attractive before. One i’m fairly interested in is Bonfire, the idea of circles of users, denoting different degrees of openness sounds useful.
For what it’s worth, there are plenty of active forums out there, they just tend to be topic specific and take either effort or familiarity to discover. There are a lot of good things about their design, especially anti-abuse features on some of them.
It really distills down to what the point of the site is. Facebook and Twitter at their cores were good platforms designed to connect people. They were both pretty great at first.
Then, the purpose of the sites changed into ‘make the most money’.
I would like to know more about the “Access” act discussed in the article. I found Australian and US examples of Acts with that name, but neither was about the idea of forcing federation.
Facebook and Twitter at their cores were good platforms designed to connect people. They were both pretty great at first.
Then, the purpose of the sites changed into ‘make the most money’.
Literal textbook example of enshitification, which IIRC was coined by Doctorow. First you give value to the users, then you exploit the users to create value for the partners (your description skips over this step), then you exploit partners to create value for yourself. Then you die.
Looking at the links in that part, ACCESS is the “Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act”
This last month or so, I’ve finally reached a point where I’m ready to move away from Facebook even though it’s my only connection to many people. I hope that when I go, one or two might join me in a different online space… but I’m not deluding myself thinking it’ll be more than that.
I have, however, just shared this article over there as a kind of advance notice. I know I’m not the only one in my circle who is annoyed by the enshittification.
Yeah, theres also people in my life who have previously been forward leaning into new and independent tech platforms, that have remained quite passive about moving in the direction of the fediverse/social web.
Its been a question for me why they’re quite passive. This article’s discussion on collective action gives me a possible insight into their thinking.
If they’ve been so forward leaning previously, maybe they feel too invested in where they are for the trouble.
I think there’s also entrenchment in the history we build up on a site. Yesterday Facebook reminded me that it’s been 12 years since we took in a stray cat our neighbours had been looking after. We have many fond memories of that cat, but it was nice to have something external bring up that initial memory of first bringing him into our house. Today’s “memories” include silly quotes from siblings. There are old discussions to look back on. I’ll miss that sort of thing as well as the people. Fully setting up on a new platform (and leaving Facebook) feels like starting over, and inertia is hard to overcome.
Yep. Theres a sense of personal loss there that the excitement of people like me previously overlooked.
I think this article starts off very strong, but from my perspective, loses focus on its original themes and focuses on a legislative change. Now, that makes perfect sense given the 2022 US context of the article and the purpose of the article, it’s clearly part of a campaign to build support for legislation which would ideally reduce the anti-competitive actions described. Nothing wrong with that, but disappointing to read here and now.
Consider the examples of collective direct action given, like the Friendster users abusing the friends feature to create interest groups. They achieved the changes they wanted without relying on a slow and tenuous legal process. Legislative change should not be considered the primary way forward, merely one of many options, because ultimately legislation is not beholden to us.
In an Australian context i’ve viewed it slightly differently, we have an active enforcer in the ACCC.
So my question is what point, if any, does the Commissioner call time on the concept of the walled garden being primarily a safety device and pursue it as anti-competitive conduct.
Its been a long time since i’ve read through requirements. Unless they’ve changed it a big moment may be if/when sections of the fediverse commercialise, and the ‘walled garden concept’ can be said to be affecting the market access of actual/potential customers/businesses, not simply users.
