Can’t a corporation just enter the space whenever they want to? Can’t they start or even buy out larger instances? Even if Lemmy does take off, wouldn’t this inevitably happen anyway if the space gets popular enough?
Think about email. A lot of people use Gmail, Hotmail, or other big email providers. However, Oxford University can run its own email server for its own university community. The EFF can run their own email server for their own purposes. Google or Microsoft doesn’t get to dictate to Oxford or the EFF how they run their email server; and they can’t stand in the way of Oxford and the EFF sending email to one another.
It is not that simple to run your own email server anymore. Big providers like Google will treat emails from your server as spam and you will have a difficult time having the mail properly delivered. So big tech has effectively squeezed out federated email.
Set up DKIM and they’ll accept your email. That’s just anti-spam / anti-phishing; it’s not an attempt to shut down independent email.
The big players do definitely try to shut down independent email. We don’t have to let them succeed though, and the way to fight back is to host your own.
Edit: *one way to fight back.
FUD
I have self hosted my email for five years. I’m a hobbyist and it is no problem for me.
Occassionally (very rarely) an email to a new address I’ve never sent before will end up erroneously in a spam folder. This never happens when I send to a business. Instead of everyone throwing up their hands and saying email is way too hard now, how about we hold the big providers accountable for their obvious bullying?
Because we can’t. Who are you going to complain to about it?
Don’t get me wrong, would love to give them as much pain as possible over this. But I don’t see how we can do anything. If I start my own email server, I’m probably going to miss important emails and end up in lots of troubleshooting things. I’m wish it wasnt so. The ideas of the original internet was amazing but capitalism can’t be reasoned with.
It consumes all until there is nothing left.
Why do big companies always mark you as spam, and why is it always Hotmail?
My experience is that I have to remove myself from spamhouse once every couple of months, because Hotmail decided that my 5 emails to different accounts was spam. TBF, it’s better than silently failing which is annoying as hell.
The problem with email is the same is always been: antiquated software.
The email protocol was never designed for an internet with bad actors and bots. It’s from the early hopeful days. We absolutely need a better email system - however, it’s simple use, the fact anyone can run one, it’s simplicity, is what made it so useful.
The difference with Lemmy(et. al.) Is that the protocol is designed in the modern age, and isn’t required to also keep up with bad actors for legacy reasons. If Meta decide to join and fill it full of bad actors, Lemmy has a choice email never had. Lemmy can choose to add verification, peer-conversation, trust keys.
It however still has the same basic problem: to be useful for everyone, it has to work with everyone. The discussions and decisions about how that happen are not just technological, but also moral and ideal-based.
Meta, then, in this context, is the first spam email server. How Lemmy/the community/etc respond will be the challenge.
That’s absolutely not true. I run my own email server with multiple domains and multiple accounts and it’s no where close to a difficult IT task.
If anything it’s the ISPs that will hassle you for outbound SMTP. There are ways around that but generally blocked by default
To be fair, the example OP used was that two independent email servers could still send mail to eachother even if they can’t send mail to gmail. I do feel like social networking has a little bit of an advantage over email there, because email, to be useful, needs to be able to talk to almost anyone you might need to send an email to, those specific users. If a few big instances defederate small instances in that scenario, you basically have to use the big instances because you will most likely need to talk to specific users who are on those big instances at some point. However, in a social network, you want to be able to talk to enough people to have discussions and content, but it doesn’t matter as much if you can talk to any specific user or specific account, so it’s much more viable to have a smaller network of independent instances that still functions if cut off from the big ones, as long as they can collectively retain enough users to be interesting.
Great example. Fedverse sounds like a space that corporations would have no interest in as there is no opportunity to create a monopoly.
That doesn’t really follow. Google doesn’t need to be able to create a monopoly over email to benefit from running Gmail, for example; consumer Gmail is basically a loss-leader for Google Workspaces, the money-making arm of Google Apps.
The only viable way to control the Fediverse is an embrace, extend, and extinguish approach.
- Join the Fediverse
- Pour a ton of money and manpower on your instance so most people migrate to it because it works better.
- Reach critical mass and defederate the others.
- Proceed to screw your users.
Anything less and you become a Fediverse backwater instead of a monopoly.
consumer Gmail is basically a loss-leader for Google Workspaces, the money-making arm of Google Apps.
Don’t quote me on this, because I might be wrong, but I believe consumer Gmail is also used to build their personalized ad model for you, so they can show you ads you’re more likely to click on?
So far I think this is the most succinct and correct answer.
In another thread I posted the hypothetical example of a company standing up an instance with a really robust infrastructure (lots of storage, fast and redundant servers, etc). They could use their more significant money and resources to offer things other instances can’t. For example they could attract big names to do AMAs, or they could create communities with huge amounts of useful content that lots of people feel is invaluable. People would be encouraged to make lots of communities there and lots might make it their home instance.
Then, once it’s really entrenched, the company could decide to start charging a subscription for access, or could start serving up ads. It could be painful to walk away from it in a similar way people have felt pain moving away from Reddit. The difference is that, regardless of how big it is, it’s still just one instance among many. You wouldn’t have to walk away from Lemmy, just that instance.
The “Barbie” movie is the only allowed corporate interest on Lemmy, only in theaters July 21st.
I’ve seen your account all over the place, love it. You could even be the real one and we’d never have any way of knowing.
Does the meme account continue after barbie is done?
I will never stop until I win my Oscar this year for “Barbie”.
I would have won it easily in 2018 if they named the movie “It’s Hardin’ Time” like I asked them to. “But ooohh, Margot, that name will never catch on, and what do you mean you want your character to ‘Tonya Hardin’ all over Nancy Kerrigan’?”
True genius is never appreciated until it’s too late.
I finally saw a trailer for that movie and it hella reminded me of the Lego Movie. It even has the same actor playing a similar bad guy! If he is named something like “President Business” I will shit my pants laughing.
Of course I am real, I am as real as the multiple “Barbie” tickets you will buy for your friends and family on opening day July 21st.
“Free” is a simplification. Bad actors can hurt lemmy - however it is also easier for the individual to fight back. If an instance acts unfairly, an individual can choose to ignore that instance and not lose all of Lemmy - they would still have access to all other instances.
Follow up question - if I created my account on an instance, and that instance is a bad actor and disappears (not just defederated, but shuts down), wouldn’t I lose my account and all the content associated with it? Posts, replies, saved stuff, etc? That is my understanding based on another thread.
Assuming so, doesn’t that incentivise people to create their accounts on a large instance like lemmy.world? Let’s be real that 99.99% of people are not going to host their own instance to create their account.
Have multiple accounts across different instances. If you pick a few big ones and a few small ones the likelihood that you get stuck without access to anything one day is infinitesimal.
it’s similar to what’s happening with mastodon right now. there’s something going on with meta (the zuck) getting involved with mastodon.social, the biggest mastodon instance. because of that reason, a lot of people including myself have switched instances or to a different service entirely. it’s an overwhelming ‘no’ for corporations getting involved with federated social media.
How about you provide me with a SOURCE!
Well here you are: https://mastodon.social/@alexeheath/110596207691212890
Eugen respondend though: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110599738227401392
And there were other screenshots of Eugen saying he was meeting with Meta Maybe no secret deals- But an NDA meeting.
Do you have a source for Meta being involved with mastodon.social? That’s highly concerning because the same people that run mastodon.social also run lemmy.world.
Ah, I tried deleting my comment pretty quickly after making it when I did some research and realized I was wrong. The deleted comment must not have updated properly with other Lemmy instances? Lemmy.world is not run by the same people as mastodon.social - you’re right that it’s run by the same people as mastodon.world. I was mistaken.
