Comment Re:Turns out the only thing "Open" (Score 1) 46
Time to call it Open?AI
The users aren't really abandoning Reddit. A two-day blackout isn't abandonment or a boycott. All you're doing is telling the company that you're so much of an addict that you'll be back in a few days.
A warning shot does not mean you will miss with the next one.
If Lemmy or Mastodon go evil, people still have to find another website and move their accounts and communities over, no different from what is happening with Reddit right now.
No and no... First, Lemmy can not "go evil." Lemmy.ml can go evil. And people can chose not to federate with them. But there are lots of lemmy servers. And mastodon servers. And kbin... It is more like email. Yes, lemmy.ml is the gmail of the lemmy ecosystem, but you do not need a gmail account to send email. And yes, you need to pick you home carefully. Like email. And you need to pick the home for your group carefully as well. But you can, and they can move and it still works.
Even if they suddenly backtrack, unlikely as that us, it is likely too late. Many people are looking for alternatives, many have already left, more will follow.
I think if they fired spez and hung it all on him, it could work. A lot of people hate him so he could take the blame. And he slandered a dev in the public arena so they have cause. But short of that, I think people will be looking elsewhere.
They do not care after that, they will float away from the burning wreckage on their golden parachutes.
That depends on how badly they break it now.
It's better because it's where the people are.
When you're trying to build a new platform, it's not enough to be better. You have to be so much better that staying with the existing platform doesn't make sense. Otherwise the momentum of the existing community already being where it is, of people knowing to look there for it, all of that mass is just not worth moving.
Unless the platform you're competing with screws up so handily people feel like they don't have a choice. Take a look at freenode a couple years ago removing effectively all the value of the platform in a matter of days when a new owner took control. People moved, and moved quickly, because the thing they had been using disintegrated, just like reddit is in the process of doing now.
This! People hate facebook but could not get their friends to move to mewant and steemit. And right now the people at lemmy, kbin and mastodon are are working their butts off to not screw up this golden opportunity of people looking for options. If any federated social networking gains critical mass, things for all social networking will get very interesting.
The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.
