[uri4]

It is centralised and only for US. I am not going to participate on any platform that is not decentralised, federated and zero trust.

In past I put a lot of effort into various forums. Well sourced information, several thousands hours of work. But very ofter it was all wasted, wiped and deleted.

Now I only write books. There are well established censorship laws. And work I put into writing book will be preserved!

[KyeRussell]

Every 12-24 months there’s a five mile long line for the soapbox so all the computer nerds can get up and tell us that they’re putting a line in the sand and that federation is the only answer. Now, just as always, the world will continue spinning without them and this sort of idealism that seems completely blind to reality that for all the Smart People that have put their mind to federated / decentralised social networks, none of them are any good. Now, as always, all that make this claim will inevitably succumb to the reality that their vanity is worth more than their ideals, and will make their way back to Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate and despise both Twitter and Musk. But to act like Mastadon or any of the other attempts at this stuff appeal to people that aren’t tech / privacy wonks is tone deaf. And as much as Twitter is a ‘platform for elites to disseminate their thoughts that’s pretending to be a social network’, “publishing books” is certainly amother step in that direction.

[jl6]

Don’t forget, it’s not a choice between Twitter and a federated alternative. You can happily use neither.

[narrator]

Search doesn't really work on Mastodon and it's full of boring content. It only works if you can get all your friends to use the same server. That's impossible these days. Nobody is going to install and figure out an another app just to be on your personal mastodon instance.

[zimpenfish]

> It only works if you can get all your friends to use the same server.

I'm the only user on my server and I have a bunch of (not on my server) friends on my timeline. I'm not sure what you're suggesting isn't happening?

[kmlx]

> I hate and despise both Twitter and Musk.

how could one get to a level of “hate and despise both Twitter and Musk”?

[KerrAvon]

That seems like the default position for both those things? How could you not unless you’re an alt-right shitposter?

[MichaelCollins]

Years of trouble and misbehavior coming from both of those would seem to explain it, no?

[nonrandomstring]

There's nothing quite like walking into a bookshop, library or someones house and seeing a copy of your book.

You can see from the well thumbed edges that it's been read. It's been around for 10 years and it will be around for another 30 or 40 (modern bindings notwithstanding) - and some copies will probably outlive you.

The same cannot be said for the "Internet" - although I think what Brewster Kahle has done with The Internet Archive is amazing - much of which remains ephemeral.

Once books were the preserve of "elites". Now I think the tables are turned. Some marginal voices get traction only through traditional publication forms because they live in repressive technological regimes or outside the walled gardens of the so-called "town square". It is not the egalitarian utopia once promised.

Here's an excerpt from Digital Vegan

  "With opportunities to fix our digital world from /within/ the
  system vanishing, book publishing remains a bastion of open
  intelligence. What you hold in your hands (or have as a non-DRM
  file) may soon be one of the few remaining means to circulate
  critical opinions that would quickly be censored online."

[aliswe]

I am not going to participate on any platform that is not decentralised, federated and zero trust.

Well you just did.

[p1necone]

Some third party forum/social media site failing to host your writing for eternity is not even slightly the same thing as censorship.

If you've written a bunch of stuff that you think is valuable and you want to make sure it's available forever then you should make a blog and host it yourself. (Which you have sort of done by writing a book, but you didn't need to go that far if all you cared about was longevity)

[sib]

I'm confused. Isn't Hacker News centralized & non-federated?

[pessimizer]

That's totally different. HN isn't owned by an unaccountable billionaire

[nathias]

how do you think hackernews works?

[fredgrott]

ahem you do already, it's called the internet!

Maybe you forgot internet is not decentralized.

[threeseed]

Actually the internet is decentralised. It's just that a lot of people either don't know or simply aren't willing to trade convenience for ideological purity.

Anybody can run a web server at home, get a domain name, write a Twitter clone, host it and publish whatever content they like. And when you exceed your traffic limits you can take that web server, drive to your local co-located provider and in almost all cases they will let you grow that site almost ad infinitum provided the content isn't illegal.

You don't need to ask permission. You don't need to compromise your ideology. You can just do it.

But people don't want freedom or decentralisation. What they want is the ability to say anything they like and for everyone to hear it.

[nunobrito]

So the "actshually" meme comes true. Instead of reddit-style legalisms, just try to be more human and understand their perspective for a change.

People do have the desire and right to ask for mainstream platforms to be decentralized. Is it feasible today? Technically: yes, realistically: no.

Why?

Because even MORE people are needed to effectively demand the right for mainstream platforms to be decentralized. You know that. Now be nice to them, please.

[dotnet00]

Until of course you piss off someone with connections and ever higher levels of ISPs start trying to cut you off from the rest of the world.