So, I was kinda idly thinking about how we’re seeing more and more companies such as Reddit give into peer pressure in favor of profit. As their endless stream of investment dollars with the hope of being profitable eventually seems to be running out. How do you see the web moving forward?
Do you think the best way forward, is to go back? I was thinking about it and back in the old days people would have websites that they would host that would make little to no money, they’d just run them for fun, for the passion of it. Do you see these days returning? Lemmy is kind of an example of that, and other federated self-hosted software. It kind of feels like the way things might be headed. People host their own, smaller scale sites, not in pursuit of profits specifically, but for the passion of it.
I honestly think this way of communicating with eachother is more genuine, more real and honestly more optimal. Communications with others shouldn’t entirely hinge upon the will of one soul entity. And while federation definitely has its issues, I personally think it’s vastly better than being ruled by 1 single entity who’s entire goal is to farm as much mindless doomscrolling as possible in pursuit of profits.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not against making money off of your work, I think if you spent time working on something you should absolutely make money off of it. However, I don’t think it’s the way our communication should work. For original content such as art, books, movies, shows, games or other similar mediums, I definitely think that the creator is entitled to make money off of that work.
But having our communication fueled by that sort of business model doesn’t make sense to me. It incentives more harsh restrictions on speech and discussion, restricting user speech/expression to what’s “advertiser friendly” and of course, for harvesting and collecting our personal data like we’re some sort of crop or cattle.
Might’ve gone on a bit of a tangent there, but I hope my general point still got across.
The idea of user/employee owned internet businesses is a cool one and I could definitely see advantages to that! Never really thought of that model, but it’s definitely not a bad idea in concept, Idk how it’d work in practice. Not saying it wouldn’t work, simply that I’m not smart enough to know off the top of my head.
I definitely hope more people start hosting federated social media, I’m not sure I want it to catch on to becoming mainstream. I could see some disadvantages with that that might potentially put us back to square one. Though, that’s just a worry on my part, not really based on anything concrete.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question, very much appreciated.
You should read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, as the idea of employee-owned businesses where you have to invest in order to work there is a thing that exists in the third book (and foreshadowed by the coops in the second).
I’ve been looking for a decent sci-fi series. If I like Red Mars will I like the rest?
Yeah, you should.