[throwawaysml]

Didn't Google try to solve that with circles. I never used Facebook or any other "social network", so I'm probably unaware of some details, but I read about circles when Google+ came out and it sounded like a solution for exactly this problem.

[JoshMnem]

I think they got the idea of circles from Diaspora.

The WWW works best when used as intended: decentralized communities that encourage people to be creators rather than consumers.

Instead of Facebook, participate in independent online communities around your interests (for example, forums).

Instead of chat apps that attempt to envelop everyone you've ever met into monolithic walled gardens, use SMS and email.

Instead of Medium, learn how to create your own independent blog with something like Metalsmith, Hugo, or Hexo.

Etc.

[closeparen]

>Instead of Facebook, participate in independent online communities around your interests (for example, forums).

Replacing your actual social network with anonymous internet strangers leaves you in a much worse position on the axes on which people usually criticize Facebook. Facebook may be a poor substitute for meatspace interaction with your actual community, but your connecting with your actual community is surely more important than connecting with internet strangers.

>Instead of chat apps that attempt to envelop everyone you've ever met into monolithic walled gardens, use SMS and email.

SMS is a spectacularly low-quality monolithic walled garden. Email is federated in theory but in practice is almost always Google. Both systems have the uniquely privacy-hostile property of being in cleartext by default and in the overwhelming majority of real-world usage.

[JoshMnem]

I was an adult before most people were on the Internet. People don't need sites like Facebook to connect with their communities.

Strangers are only strangers until you start communicating with them. Most people I know these days were first met through the Internet.

I suspect that most people use webmail (HTTPS), and many people don't use Gmail. I can switch my number to another carrier and people can still reach me at the same number, so it isn't exactly a walled garden. I think it's a stretch to argue that Facebook is better than email from a privacy standpoint.

[dTal]

>SMS is a spectacularly low-quality monolithic walled garden

How do you figure? I can communicate with SMS to anyone in the world, on any mobile provider. Seems pretty federated to me.

[closeparen]

Ever tried to get an SS7 connection?

Sure, you can rent access from Twilio, in the same way that you can rent access from Facebook. It’s extremely unlikely that you could ever become a full participant in either network.

[dTal]

Okay, so there's a high barrier to entry. It's pretty hard to become an ISP too. That doesn't make either a walled garden.

It's not so much about whether I personally could federate with the network, as it is about whether some reasonably large number of other entities could. I don't have exact numbers, but it seems there are 1000+ phone providers worldwide.

[JoshMnem]

SMS isn't perfect, but it isn't really comparable to Facebook's chains.

[throwawaysml]

It's ironic since there are more content creators now if we count all the users of the silos.

My theory is that it's all about convenience and network effects. So if a fully decentralized IPFS based/alike social network would come out with mobile apps and was marketed as the way to communicate, it could have success. The big fault such projects make is to stress the technical merits and forget to play the psych-advertising game.

I've seen non-technical people have the most number of messenger apps on their phones, and some even advocated the security of their favorite messenger. Technical folks seem to be harder to persuade to join a messenger network to communicate with a new person in their life.

So I want to say once we will have a couple more high profile data breaches and centralized SPOF downtimes, people will care about security and availability, though history doesn't support they would.

[JoshMnem]

Creating isn't just about "content". Posting vapid updates and linking to articles that other people wrote isn't really creating anything. For most people, posting on social media is consumption, not creation. The Internet is on its way to becoming TV 2.0.

There are at least two ways to perceive the world: as an "architect" or as a "consumer". The Internet/WWW should teach people how to be architects, but it's failing in many ways.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I've never understood this.

We can't all do the same thing. We can all be sandwich makers.

The internet is teaching people to do all sorts of things other than be architects.

[JoshMnem]

I think that not everyone can be a large-scale architect, but those numbers can be increased.

People can be taught to at least think like architects in order to make better choices in life and understand when and how they are being manipulated by malevolent architects.

Also, one doesn't need to build million-user products to architect small changes in local communities.

An analogy: not everyone can be a good philosopher, but they should at least read philosophical ideas and be aware of them as they make decisions in life. Collective intelligence/wisdom can increased, even if most individuals are not professional philosophers.