It’s what we all loved about the internet I think, before the web become… “that” (looking at the pile of shit the web has become).
But actually it’s not the web, not really. It’s the big tech platforms that most people seem to think is the internet now. It’s sad to watch how people log on to “Facebook” and not the general web anymore. And then Google in front of everything, like a big cancer growth.
Lemmy is not the new internet either I believe. But it’s here to show people that something else can exist. As soon as we let advertising in here though, it’s over.
adding to the old internet thing, using mojeek reminds me of the old search results! searched for something mildly obscure, actually got good results and also a porn site lmfao.
there’s a safe mode if it’s of use: nested in the settings gear menu but also on /preferences (to turn it on for all searches)
The beautiful thing about decentralisation is that if an instance tries to as ads, then you can go to a different instance and see the same content.
If an instance creates as posts, your instance admin can block the whole instance.
Interestingly, the big instances seem to easily get enough donations to cover costs. I think that’s the great thing about this model, people are willing to donate when they know it’s not some big corporate making profit for shareholders.
I think the answer is not to gatekeep against advertising actively, but to have a platform that is resilient to that kind of thing. Like, if there were advertising on an instance people would fucking BOUNCE I think. And if it got somehow baked into the platform itself there would be a new fork with the advertising excised before the sun went down.
I’m not sure about that. What if advertising were used to cover server costs, just like donations right now? Then the community may be fine with it.
But I think it’s very dangerous to go down that route. Because it’s going to become about higher profits, not just covering costs, in the long run.
I don’t know either, but so far not a single instance has even tried to my knowledge. I have a very hard time imagining people being okay with it.
