Aside from anything else, we used to have diverse federated social networks based around open standards, and they inevitably either raced towards the median of functionality (Email) or centralised due to “tragedy of the commons”-type abuse, which was pumping up costs by them being used for “free storage without burden upon the storer” (Usenet).

The ecosystem of social networks can, must, and should churn; but effective communications solutions must honour some form of Metcalfe’s Law, even if the math should be NlogN rather than Nsquared, or whatever.

Unrolled:

Imagine what we could do if more devs put their minds and energies to creating alternatives to surveillance capitalism…

But why do that when you have so much privilege within the system that you can follow your every superficial hedonistic intellectual whimsy instead?

Folks could be helping tilt the scales towards social justice but they’re too busy coding in Brainfuck over the weekends.

Originally tweeted by Aral Balkan ? (@aral) (@aral) on 2021/04/25.

Footnote

Also, I am wondering where my lavish estate is?