• poVoq@slrpnk.net
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    23 hours ago

    Fine I didn’t need to go as low as Ayn Rand.

    But I think you still didn’t get my argument last time. Tl;dr: there is no point in doing what you propose as it just results in recreating the same shit we already have. This has nothing to do with moral failings and everything with strategy and not repeating the same mistakes all over again.

    And besides that I agree that Siskin isn’t great, and most likely suggested this instead. And that “open-source alternative” is now open-core and can’t pay their bloated expenses now that VC funding has run dry. I hope you see the irony in what you just wrote, because that is really a clear example of how unsustainable and ill advised that kind of growth is.

    • rglullis@communick.newsOP
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      22 hours ago

      it just results in recreating the same shit we already have

      This is you passing opinion as undisputed truth. I am not proposing “Let’s take on the big corporations by building another big corporation”, I am saying “we can get rid of the dominance from big corporations if we help foment an economy of small, independent businesses.” and I am saying “if we keep this anti-business culture where we are hostile to even some food truck owner trying to connect to their customers, then don’t complain when the food truck owner continues using Facebook/Instagram/Twitter”.

      And that “open-source alternative” is now open-core

      Synapse is still AGPLv3. Their closed parts are for Enterprise. No one is being locked out of crucial features. No one is being locked out of reaching out other users of the network. No one is being forced to “upgrade” after reaching a certain size. To call it open-core is just yet-another display of bias.

      and most likely suggested this (Monal) instead.

      Monal does not make video calls! Not having video calls was a non-starter in 2015, let alone today.

      because that is really a clear example of how unsustainable and ill advised that kind of growth is.

      Is it? Because so far I managed to talk with a lot more people on Matrix than I ever did on XMPP, and that wouldn’t change even if Element closed shop tomorrow. And even if it did, the odds would be highly in favor of some other company like Beeper picking up the pieces to serve its customers and it would still be in their interest to keep things open to have the ecosystem around.

      So, at the end of the day, yes, I’d rather have this “unsustainable” growth than claiming any moral victory for sticking to the Betamax of chat protocols. This “unsustainable” system gave me and few hundred million people something that is far from perfect, but at least it can make video calls on iOS.

      • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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        21 hours ago

        Lets not repeat the entire argument, but you are being extremely naive and literally play lipservice to what Mark Zuckerberg thinks the Fediverse should become.

        And, no. Vital parts for running a somewhat decently sized Synapse instance are not AGPLv3 licenced, Element requires a CLA so they can easily alter the deal even further, and their own marketing people go around fearmongering about the AGPL, which is a classic play of open-core companies. If it walks like a duck and all that…

        And Matrix had never even close to a few hundred million users. By their own admission during the presentation at the last FOSDEM, their MAU is barely above 300k. That’s what IRC had before Matrix started canibalizing them 🙄

        • rglullis@communick.newsOP
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          13 hours ago

          Matrix had never even close to a few hundred million users.

          Yeah, completely typo’ed here. I wanted to change from “hundred of thousands” to “a few million” and ended up with the worst combination. Too late to edit, now.

          what Mark Zuckerberg thinks the Fediverse should become.

          If you ask me, I think Zuckerberg wants to commoditize the social graph and position his company to become the AWS of social web applications. It would be the best way to skirt all regulations (because he would claim that he is only providing infrastructure and is not liable for the content) and it would let he profit from the others by providing service and by snooping on the data they get through their servers.

          And you know what? I’d be absolutely fine with him trying to do it. I actually would like to see how this would play out. I’d rather have a world where Zuckerberg has the "AWS of social media’ than a world where he has “Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram and whatever competition he manages to kill by buying them off”.

          A world where Zuckerberg owns the AWS of social media implies a world where others like Hetzner, OVH and all the gajillion VPS low-end boxes can exist. As horrible and morally bankrupt Zuckerberg is, letting him make this move would be an improvement over the status quo.

          Even if some compromises have to be made, a world where Zuckerberg controls 30-40% of the social web leaves us all some room to work and maintain a healthier alternative to our friends and family. And this is a better world than the one where we pretend to pass ideological purity test but inevitably need to install and use WhatsApp to talk with a friend or to send a picture to my parents.

          Vital parts for running a somewhat decently sized Synapse instance are not AGPLv3 licenced.

          Define “vital” and define “decently sized”. What point does AGPL Synapse becomes impossible to use? Are we talking about an instance for an university with a few thousand students and faculty? A company with a few hundred employees?

          Couldn’t that issue be solved by simply breaking a larger instance into smaller subgroups? Couldn’t this “soft-ceiling” on instance size be actually a positive thing, as it would encourage better distribution of the user base among different service providers?

          But more importantly, why should I care so much about theoretical, technical limitations that affect virtually no one and give preference to an alternative ecosystem that does not even have an decent client that people can use to make video calls?

          • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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            12 hours ago

            Fine, if you want to be the useful fool for Mark Zuckerberg you can do that, but I rather be not. The improvement in that setup is mainly on the side of Mark Zuckerberg as you write yourself. The rest would be some maganged opposition only existing because Mark lets them. But we had that argument before.

            You are finding excuses for shitty business practises of Element. Synapse is already bad enough software as is, even for smaller instances, and this adds direct monetary incentives for Element to keep it bad, so that people are forced to upgrade to Synapse Pro or pay an even higher amount of money to upgrade the hardware to run this extremely inefficient shit software. This is all typical of open-core software vendors and you are having Stockholm syndrome if you think otherwise.

            And please don’t be silly. XMPP had video calls long before Matrix. It works perfectly fine and there are many clients that support it. Just on one very small and developer hostile platform that outside of the US and Japan hardly anyone uses, it is work in progress and only partially supported.

            • rglullis@communick.newsOP
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              11 hours ago

              You are having Stockholm syndrome if you think otherwise.

              I am not picking a favorite. I’d like XMPP to succeed. I still have my accounts. I still occasionally check if the apps improve to the point where I can install on my parents’ phones and having them using it, and every time I failed.

              Element is far from great, but I did manage to set it up for my parents, for my wife and then at least we can share pictures, we can have video calls so that they can see and talk with their grandkids, and we can have a family group, and we can have reaction emojis when someone says something funny.

              Can you at least consider not being so condescending, and maybe see that other people have different priorities and values than you?

              Just on one very small and developer hostile platform that outside of the US and Japan hardly anyone uses

              Oh, come on!

              XMPP does not work perfectly fine. You can cover your eyes and ears all you want, but stop gaslighting people.

              The rest would be some maganged opposition only existing because Mark lets them. But we had that argument before.

              Yeah, right. You’d rather deny the existence of literally over 1 billion people just to keep your belief that your solution is better for the people. Excuse me if I don’t buy your "argument*.

              • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                10 hours ago

                It works perfectly fine on Android 🤷 In fact much better than any Matrix client does. That’s 70-80% or so of the global smart-phone market. Just because you made the mistake buying into a shitty walled garden like iOS doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for other people. But I see a pattern here of you ignoring reality and having Stockholm syndrome.

                Again, there is no point in moving “1 billion people” from Facebook to a “Facebook run AWS for social media”. There is just no benefit other than for Facebook to avoid accountability. You are wasting your time if you think otherwise.

                • rglullis@communick.newsOP
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                  9 hours ago

                  Just because you made the mistake buying into a shitty walled garden like iOS doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for other people.

                  So much misfires in one single sentence. Impressive.

                  • “you made the mistake”: I am not talking my phone, but from other people that I want to talk to.
                  • “shitty walled garden like iOS”: I may not like, and you may not like, but there are 20-30% of the whole world that to do prefer to have a phone that gives them a walled garden and gives them some peace of mind. But instead of accepting that other might have different values than you, you try to dismiss their values as secondary to your cause and you pass your values as something that should be universal. Are you noticing the pattern here?
                  • doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for other people: if someone on Android can not have video calls via XMPP with someone on iOS, then no, it doesn’t work for neither of them.

                  I see a pattern here of you ignoring reality

                  You want to keep believing that your solution is superior and that the problem is with everyone else that keeps choosing the wrong things? Fine, I will not be able to convince you otherwise. But to keep being presented with actual experience from other people and respond by saying that “they are ignoring reality”? This is just silly.

                  • poVoq@slrpnk.net
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                    9 hours ago

                    Well, keep repeating the same mistakes and find excuses for it all you want. I am not into “superior” solutions at all, but I don’t think there is much point in perpetuating the same clearly failed approaches.