Lots of great updates in the latest Mastodon release, but I am particularly excited about this.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
Leaving something like this up to each individual town is going to leave A LOT of people behind with no or substandard services that make musk look like a genius.
Expecting random people with the knowledge necessary to pick up this sword and spearhead projects in their towns ignored the fact that most people are too busy trying to survive and can’t put in the work that would need to be done.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
My dude, I KNOW your intentions are good but you are ignoring huge swaths of reality in your proposals, and pointing out your biases is not saying you don’t care, but that maaaaaaybe you need to reassess and rethink things, perhaps take a deeper look into yourself and where/how you are building your assumptions from.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
Like, fuck, dude.
I know I’m being pessimistic and I really don’t mean to piss on your general ideas. Something like this very well could work for a small subset of large areas with the necessary ingredients. But it WILL NOT work for a majority of towns, villages, and cities. And it would leave far too many people behind or with substandard options -
@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
> Leaving something like this up to each individual town is going to leave A LOT of people behind.
1) You got hung up on one possibility and you are treating it as an absolute/universal solution.
2) Whatever number you have for "A LOT", it is certainly lower than the *current* number of people w/o access to the Fediverse.
If, e.g, 80% of people pay and 20% are exempt is sustainable for everyone on Earth. When ~2% "donate", we get this small village.
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@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
It is still better than the status quo.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
It’s naïve and cruel to leave something like this up to small local governments when there’s better options *right there* just because you have a bias against larger level governmental bodies.
No, they ate not perfect, far from it. (That’s where your grass roots projects can actually help btw) but they are infinitely more prepared to make something like this work for everyone on an equal footing
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
Like… if the top 10% of wealth holders actually paid taxes etc on par* with the middle 50% of the population none of this would even be an issue, but that is a MUCH larger systemic problem than some piddling social media site
*On par means that they pay the same percentage on their money. Which would be like a sneeze to them as they already could never spend even half of what they have and even notice
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@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
I am not "leaving to the small governments". I am saying the larger bulk of the problem would be solved by making costs explicit and to let a *healthy market* emerge, where you can have individual service providers and independent consumers.
The "local governments" idea only came up as ONE possible alternative to account for the case where you argued that "paywalling would leave people behind". They would handle exceptional cases, not the core system.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
But it’s NOT a proper option.
Some disabled person out in the middle of nowhere who depends on social media for their support network is not going to get a better option through their local government library if paywalled out, because as I’ve said, it wouldn’t be able to do something like that.So that person would still be left behind.
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@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
We could be here forever talking about how none of these problems would exist if we had systems that avoided concentration of power and capital, but can we go back to focus on the "how do we make this sustainable and universally accessible?" specific issue?
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@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
Okay, but if this support network is so crucial and the work it is doing is so viable, *surely* it will get enough people to fund it?
How is this disabled person *today* getting access to the Fediverse? Why do you think that making the costs explicit would automatically get rid of charities/sponsors/generous people?
It seems like we are talking about the same thing, but you have a preconceived notion that one entity should be able to answer for all?
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
I mean, really this is the type of thing way beyond what a couple of randos on masto will ever be able to even dent.
Throwing around ideas in poor Stefan’s mentions is cool and all, but anything that would even have a chance needs way more structure and input from a way bigger and diverse knowledge and experience base.
(And significantly fewer tech bros and ‘entrepreneurs’ than you are thinking)
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@Alien_Sunset @raphael @deadsuperhero "poor Stefan’s mentions"
Hah, no worries! I didn't really have much else to contribute to the conversation. But I do appreciate that this is a topic folks are passionate about, and while we may not have come up with specific solutions that we can all agree on, it still gives me hope that we'll figure this out!
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
Are you aware of the numbers of people that are using other site and options exactly BECAUSE the charity and support is so thin on the ground around here?
I cannot count the number of times a friend or acquaintance has been shamed, blocked, or worse, dogpiled and harassed because they had the nerve to ask for help when they needed it.
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@raphael @stefan @deadsuperhero
Like I know this is wandering a bit from the original topic, but like, the fediverse is far from a perfect option. It just happens to be one of the better ones, and one that I’ve decided to make my “home“
And Stefan can attest, I’m stubborn and bull headed and once I settle on something I want, spite can be a wonderful motivator towards success
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@Alien_Sunset @stefan @deadsuperhero
This certainly exists and a lowlight of the general culture here, but completely orthogonal to the "people are not getting access to the Fediverse because they cannot afford it and there is no one providing access for free to them" problem.
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@Alien_Sunset @raphael @deadsuperhero Hah, stubbornness, when wielded properly, can lead to great results!