npub1cw…0hzsh on Nostr: #MetaMeta Different people want different things for the Fediverse. In fact, there is ...
#MetaMeta
Different people want different things for the Fediverse. In fact, there is already a schism over basic human decency (and it's a good thing; the likes of Gab absolutely shouldn't be welcomed by most). There is a very real racism problem where many people's idea of "nice" tends to push out non-white participants. And there are also some usability issues, where tech-savvy users (myself included) don't acknowledge or address UX concerns because we can easily work around them, ultimately excluding those wit different skillsets to our own detriment.
But.
For everyone saying that the Twitter migration "failed" or that we must accept federation with Meta because they will bring enormous numbers of users and/or the mythical "mainstream acceptance," I think there's a serious basic disagreement that goes unspoken. Most of these people seem to define success as growth and/or reaching some arbitrary large scale (sometimes while also pointing out the technical roadblocks to that). But I think a lot of others (myself somewhat included) see success as meeting existing users' needs for information and social connection, and reject a growth/death dichotomy.
"Mastodon will never be big enough to be a competitor to Twitter or Facebook unless we federate with Meta." is just not a convincing argument to me, because "being big enough" is not a goal I care about (do remember my above disclaimers about inclusion here; my stance is not "works for me, no improvements needed"). In fact, I think that federating with Meta will be a fatal mistake for those that do it in terms of the goals I care about, even if it leads to more growth for those servers (and that's even without assuming a full EEE outcome).
I'd like the fediverse to be more inclusive, and to attract a broader audience in terms of technical ability and cultures, but I don't think it needs to grow exponentially to do that, and I think that either explicitly or implicitly viewing growth/scale as a necessity is harmful, as it tends to push out a lot of other priorities.
Different people want different things for the Fediverse. In fact, there is already a schism over basic human decency (and it's a good thing; the likes of Gab absolutely shouldn't be welcomed by most). There is a very real racism problem where many people's idea of "nice" tends to push out non-white participants. And there are also some usability issues, where tech-savvy users (myself included) don't acknowledge or address UX concerns because we can easily work around them, ultimately excluding those wit different skillsets to our own detriment.
But.
For everyone saying that the Twitter migration "failed" or that we must accept federation with Meta because they will bring enormous numbers of users and/or the mythical "mainstream acceptance," I think there's a serious basic disagreement that goes unspoken. Most of these people seem to define success as growth and/or reaching some arbitrary large scale (sometimes while also pointing out the technical roadblocks to that). But I think a lot of others (myself somewhat included) see success as meeting existing users' needs for information and social connection, and reject a growth/death dichotomy.
"Mastodon will never be big enough to be a competitor to Twitter or Facebook unless we federate with Meta." is just not a convincing argument to me, because "being big enough" is not a goal I care about (do remember my above disclaimers about inclusion here; my stance is not "works for me, no improvements needed"). In fact, I think that federating with Meta will be a fatal mistake for those that do it in terms of the goals I care about, even if it leads to more growth for those servers (and that's even without assuming a full EEE outcome).
I'd like the fediverse to be more inclusive, and to attract a broader audience in terms of technical ability and cultures, but I don't think it needs to grow exponentially to do that, and I think that either explicitly or implicitly viewing growth/scale as a necessity is harmful, as it tends to push out a lot of other priorities.