It’s rough right now politically in the US. A lot of people around me seem like they’re ready to give up hope. It makes me incredibly angry seeing Zuck up there with all the other billionaires, and Elon is a parasite that has infected the government.
I often find myself wondering how I can make a difference. How can we regain control of our world?
Idk if I’m being dramatic, but the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Am I being dramatic lol? Do you all feel the same way? I was kinda getting emotional even. Like we could bring real change. That gives me hope, which is something we are desperately lacking right now.
It’s not just Lemmy. It makes me happy to see all the Fediverse platforms (specifically activity pub based) blowing up.
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
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It gives me confidence. I know that now that I host my own lemmy, I cannot be randomly banned because I triggered some automatic spam filter with my scripts (happened in reddit), or banned because I talked back to the wrong mod. I know that our internationally distributed nature makes it harder to control top-down, so takeovers like Musk-Xitter are not possible. We can still be affected by disinfo campaigns and troll farms, and we unfortunately have weakened defenses against that, but I’m confident that a lot of smart admins and tooling providers will bunch together to figure out the countermeasures that will work.
How expensive is it to host your own instance? Assuming you aren’t doing it in house.
About 5-20 eur/month should be enough for most instance admins, depending on their provider.
Which do you use?
I’m curious about this too
My setup is quite complex and I have 1000+ MAU so we’re not a small instance anymore. That said we use hetzner, ovh, and mailgun. Our hosting hosts are more than 100 per month but I could probably be running a bit cheaper if I wanted, but this way we have easy growing space.
Yeah, being banned because a mod didn’t like you was the worst thing on Reddit. Especially if they modded multiple subs and banned you from a subreddit you never even came close to breaking the rules on. Some Reddit mods were just assholes.
oh snap, db0 the person! Love your instance.
I don’t live in that country, but while I like Lemmy, no, I don’t have hope any more. I’ve not had that for a long time now.
It’s interesting though, to see the US slowly turn into our enemy, and to consider that Germany will be one of our strongest democratic, antifascist allies against the new axis of evil when the time comes.
Thankfully I’m too old to be forced to fight in the next war against fascism, but I suppose poverty and climate change might kill me before then anyway. There truly is no hope left for me.
There are a few specific people on fedi who do give me hope.
Finally some god damn recognition
It gives me hope. We have an opportunity to level the playing field. So much hope that I’m actually starting a show to try to help folks get to know people behind the Fediverse! I truly believe in it and hope we can claw back the internet from the tech giants.
What kinda show?
Calling it Fireside Fedi, where I just talk to folks around the Fediverse and get to know them. I have Gabe Kangas first tomorrow. He’s the lead Dev of Owncast. Created a community !firesidefedi@lemmy.world if you’re interested. Fully Fedi powered. Livestream, Voss, socials, eventually setting up Fedi audio player as well.
Edit: fixed link to community
Cool idea!
I hope. :-D. I’m no Dev, but I enjoy talking to people and I really believe In the Fediverse so just trying to contribute anyway I can to make it a more welcoming and interesting place.
For me it does. I’m really enjoying Lemmy, and have curated a bunch of communities that I follow and participate in in a way that feels helpful, hopeful, and not toxic.
it does. as an mbin cheerleader, its heartwarming to see the disparate AP based servers communicating with my server. lemmy/friendica/mastodon etc… knowing that no entity could control all those products. the key of course is the protocol and maintaining ActivityPub as functional, standardized service.
The response is to tune-in, turn-on, and drop-out.
Start making things from scratch. Stop buying shit.
Opt-out.
Nothing gives me hope.
At least there is some small respite.
It gives me hope, but hope for a slightly better future; not for a cure for fundamental ills of online communities.
I mean it’s really depressing even being in Europe honestly but at the same time it’s a huge opportunity. It’s time to take it :) Let’s show them how decentralization AND open source can be a new standard! I’m seeing the same trend in Linux too and this is so important as well.
Also a lot of new projects to help decentralization are emerging, check https://spritely.institute/ which there’s Christine Lemmer-Webber a co-author of the ActivityPub protocol :)
Yes! A bump for spritely!
Hopeful that some parts of the population won’t be giving all their data away. There will always be bootlickers (apple fanboys, google lovers, reddit aficionados, Musk-worshippers, …) , people who just don’t know better (too old, uninterested, ignorant, unexposed, …), and people who can’t join due to things like censorship, internet speed, or whatever else.
Unfortunately, I am an Apple user lol. I don’t hate the products, but don’t care for Tim Cook, and I hate their labor practices. I also hate that they are anti-right-to-repair. I do appreciate the quality of their products and software. I hope the government slaps them with the biggest antitrust lawsuit.
Moving forward, I will be considering alternatives due to the ethics of their manufacturing. I am a big open-source supporter, and I understand that my support of Apple is a bit of cognitive dissonance. But I do wish Linux could find a way to deliver a product that feels as refined as a MacBook. I would be willing to donate to an effort to do so.
But I do wish Linux could find a way to deliver a product that feels as refined as a MacBook. I would be willing to donate to an effort to do so.
There are quite a few efforts to make linux a default and provide a good UX. One way to support them is buying stuff with linux pre-loaded. Then it’s using stuff like KDE, Gnome, other desktop enviroments and donating to them. I exclusively buy from linux hardware vendors (as in desktops and laptops) and have been donating non-stop to a few opensource projects for about 5 years now (maybe even longer).
The Linux Foundation though… I think only an external force could convince them to spend more than 2% of their budget on linux itself…
the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal
Mark Zuckerburg was up there at the inauguration because he is one of the richest men alive, and he became so mostly because of the platforms he owns.
By using the Fediverse and not his platforms, I’m denying him revenue from ads and data, even if its an infinitely small amount.
Use open platforms, give your money to ethical businesses and keep it from these assholes. Money isn’t the only way for someone to have power, but there’s no denying that the net worth on that inauguration stage was the most concentrated anywhere on earth. Don’t give them a cent more.
Vote with your dollar! You can also vote by donating to projects you believe in!
Oh, no. Not at all. All hope is lost, this is just a comfortable place to die.
Based we are all doomed
No, it’s continued relative unpopularity in the face of universal hated-but-contined-use of the mainstream networks continues to be depressing.
Although the onboarding process for most of the major fediverse platforms is a bit scary for normies.
Lemmy is very harsh to most people. People that think liberal means the Democrats.
