tfm

Why does it need to be unfederated?

larger population seems hopeless.

But what is the barrier? We have a functioning infrastructure. We need to solve the last piece of the puzzle.

People need an easy way to join!

Mastodon has already shown that this works. Even if they aren't as big as others yet, they still make up about two-thirds of the Fediverse. Now we need to replicate this for Lemmy, Pixelfed, and so on, and share our findings along the way.

Forums lifespans weren't all that much anyways.

Couldn't this be much different if "web 2.0" hadn't taken over?

Most sites that were hosted before 2010 are gone now.

Many of them are still alive but don't get the exposure they deserve because of centralized networks.

The real downside to everything being on StackOverflow, Reddit, Discord, etc is that it has made it easier for big tech to run their shady data collection and analysis schemes including AI Training.

Right. But what can we do to get people to switch to the Fediverse and put an end to this?

How about strengthening the Fediverse and Lemmy?

Let the internet burn in Reddit/Discord/SEO hell. Maybe we can build something from the ashes.

So basically, let the world burn? Because that's what it looks like we're heading toward right now because of big tech.

Maybe we can build something from the ashes.

The big question is whether it will be us who do that.

That's why we have to strengthen the fediverse!

They are both trash. How can we get more people to join Lemmy and the Fediverse?

Have you ever tried DuckDuckGo or Qwant? They have better results in my opinion, as long as you don't care about the business snippets.

How do we get them to switch to something like Element?

Is it? When was the last time you googled something and the first website that came up didn't spit out some SEO or garbage content?

None of the moneybags will listen, unfortunately. But I'm with you. The rollout of AI was extremely irresponsible. Just to make it profitable as quickly as possible.

SpaceX came to prominence and it's not because their rockets are always falling apart.

Ok, please tell me one thing they did to advance space exploration. And please don't say reusable rockets that bring down costs, because this is still a pipe dream.

Hell, the whole reason we're now talking about a European space industry is because of Starlink, so clearly capitalism was able to innovate that.

We already had satellite internet long before Starlink. In fact, Starlink is a bad idea if you consider astronomy and space exploration.

https://www.space.com/satellite-megaconstellations-spacex-starlink-interference-astronomy

The only reason Starlink was created is that Elon wanted to play online games while on some island and didn't get the latency down for it to work well. (Source: my dog)

Jokes aside, why do you need ultra-high-speed internet always and everywhere? For emergencies or normal usage, it definitely doesn't matter if a request takes 10ms or 250ms.

Taking something from a proof of concept in a lab into factories all over the world and then continuously improving it is innovation.

But does it need private institutions for that? Innovation, at least in my opinion, means making possible something we previously thought was impossible. Production and distribution aren't.

If something is truly wanted or needed, people will manufacture and distribute it easily without the need for private corporations to tell us what we need.

continuously improving

If you think that money is the driving factor, how would you explain the entire open-source ecosystem?

That seems more of a problem with lack of spine than anything else.

Huh? Of whom? The billionaire-sponsored politicians?

but putting it in state hands encourages stagnation and will eventually leave you unable to compete globally.

NASA sent people to the moon in the seventies. SpaceX must be happy if their rocket gets into low earth orbit without falling apart.

It's a widespread myth that capitalism is best at innovation. Quite the contrary is true. Most (real) innovations get developed with public resources in public institutions and private companies then take it and commercialize on it.

The internet, the touchscreen, computers, heck even AI, all developed with public money.

Also if someone tries to do stupid shit like Elon you can just nationalize the company or enforce some other harsh consequence.

And as we see it doesn't and will never happen in our current system.

He does shit like this because he knows nobody can punish him.

And that's the reason why no unelected individual should have control over so many resources which usually only countries have.