Maybe now is a good time to start a bit of an ongoing ‘Social Coding Foundations’ strategy talk here. I have been advocating for past couple of years, weaving people’s ideas, initiatives together, cross-linking, sketching ideas. All that so we wouldn’t waste the opportunity to grasp the potential that the Fediverse has, and squander it. And doing so while retaining the beautiful culture we have flourishing there. Become stronger together, and a real alternative to toxic social media. In fact, to become a Peopleverse. To Reimagine Social.
Meanwhile noticing that grassroots culture and overly technical focus in FOSS movement left Fediverse in a situation where its growing weaker rather than stronger. Maybe more resilient (resiliency by chaos), but not cohesive and able to evolve the substrate on which it stands.
It was always clear that, should decentralized social networking find broad mainstream adoption (very likely to happen) - whether it’d be with AS/AP or an alternative protocol stack - things might be going rapidly and grabbed out of the hands of Commons and Free Culture folks by the corporate world who do have greater ability to act. It is good to once more ponder why this is the case.
Fediverse may be at a pivotal point right now. The timelines are full of CEO’s, CTO’s of corporates and startups, and laid-off hotshots from Silicon Valley giants. Looking around, sniffing to see if there’s some dollars to be found. ActivityPub hashtag is glowing hot. In some time we may see first well-designed and slick commercial fedi services entering our space. Potentially the Gmails of the Fediverse.
→ How does FOSS and the Commons react?
(Prediction / Hot take: In some years people will sigh wistfully thinking of that old fedi. Yet another nice thing ripped away, for those who still remember Ye Olde Web. And they will complain how everything gets corrupted by hypercapitalism, who only take from FOSS and do not give something back for them to sustain their lives)
