Should a single company control the Social Web?

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@thisismissem @evan
Also Threads and mainly Twitter and Facebook. Remember that this was the concept on which ActivityPub itself was built. He's probably just trying to remind people of that.

Evan Prodromou

@thejvmbender That's an interesting question and should probably be a different poll. Are you thinking that there'd be a single government entity that ran the whole Fediverse?

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@evan @hallenbeck
And it doesn't necessarily have to be a single protocol, but the servers need to be interoperable, not this thing where someone makes a new protocol and we have to do all this stuff to make bridges that don't effectively connect each other. BlueSky has made this really hyped pitch for this complex system of relay servers, but it's never even come to fruition, let alone been used to seamlessly integrate the two networks.

hallenbeck

@evan Does that invalidate my question? I'm not an expert on AP or AT, I'm just trying to understand the debate, but from what I've read, there are pros/cons/strengths/weaknesses with both. Are you suggesting that AP can do everything AT can do equally well and that AT is merely a competing standard and a cynical, commercial land-grab rather than an honest alternative?

Emelia 👸🏻

@Raccoon @evan Threads is (slowly) doing ActivityPub.

j0̷

@Raccoon @evan @hallenbeck nobody wants to interop with fedi because every time they try you all endlessly shout at them until they give up

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck I'm saying that protocols are a social agreement and not a technical one. If there are things in AT that we need to do in AP, we can add them, as part of an open standard. On the Internet, we collaborate on protocols and we compete on products.

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck

This isn't just about BS, either, although it's the latest startup to try to take over the social web. Farcaster raised $150M in May.

Farcaster, a crypto-based social network, raised $150M with just 80K daily users | TechCrunch

Farcaster, a blockchain-based social protocol founded by two Coinbase alumni, announced on Tuesday that it closed a $150 million fundraise. Led by

TechCrunch (techcrunch.com)

Özkan Pakdil 🦖

@evan it was a joke, you take it seriously thanks for that, I do not believe any company should control social web, but I voted `strong yes` because I think this question is wrong.

If we start controlling social web, then it should go to ethics and government and education. Why a company control any area on web, I do not understand.

Btw I took company as in capitalism company a firm. If we are talking about as in group of people then again this question I do not understand, why a group of people should control over social web.

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck if you can think of some good examples of venture-funded startups that created open protocols that we all use today, please let me know. The best example I can come up with is Ethernet, but there are probably others.

Ethernet - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

hallenbeck

@evan Is there any appetite within the community to work with AT to bring those things it does over to AP as part of an open standardisation process? Or if not that then appetite to make AT a W3C standard alongside and in collaboration with AP, acknowledging they serve somewhat different needs? The subtext I am picking up is a fear that Bluesky is leveraging VC funding to rapidly divide and conquer the social web. A sort of zero-sum protocol war funded by a company with a product.

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck I would very much like to have the Bluesky team join the SocialCG and bring some of their work to AP. That'd be great; that's how open standards work.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's possible to do without them joining and signing a patent pledge (which every participant in W3C projects has to sign).

Others can't proactively go through their protocol to pick and choose features, because if there are patented parts, we will poison AP.

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck "The subtext I am picking up is a fear that Bluesky is leveraging VC funding to rapidly divide and conquer the social web. A sort of zero-sum protocol war funded by a company with a product."

There is an alternate frame of reference, that the BS team is just another group trying some new technical approaches, but with $36M in venture funding so far, it's hard too see that frame being valid.

hallenbeck

@evan Seems like there are a few relatively simple steps Bluesky could take here to allay some fears show real willingness and intent. To put their money where their mouth is and become an authentic collaborator and Good Actor. This to me as a non-expert sounds necessary. Hardly surprising so many form a perception that they have an ulterior motive if they don't take these steps. Seems disingenuous, simplistic, and a bit gaslighty to suggest the debate has arisen because "the fediverse is mean".

Evan Prodromou

@hallenbeck I asked Mike Masnick and Bryan Newbold to work on a patent pledge at a corporate level, so others in the area can review and learn from their work. I also think participating in groups like the SocialCG, and making sure to bring their learnings proactively, help a lot too.

hallenbeck

@evan Seems entirely reasonable and healthy.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@thisismissem @evan
I will believe it when I can respond to a post on threads and actually have a conversation with someone there like I could on here: right now they just seem to think of this as extended reach for their influencers to talk at.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@j0 @evan @hallenbeck
I will give you that, that is a problem too.

But let's be clear, that's not all of us: I try to be pretty supportive of anyone I think is trying to make a good faith effort to get in on the network, because I want the protocol to be open and widely adopted, and I want the network to be mainstream. I feel like the people who get angry at new entrants have every right to feel threatened by it, but we have to remember that they are a minority.

Munsterlandr

@evan though I feel it's probs gonna not have much variation, ye should try this poll on other social medias and see how ze results differ. Could be interesting

Evan Prodromou

@munsterlandr I did it on Threads with similar but more qualified results.