Does the Fediverse give you hope?

[fundmecfsresearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

You only have the freedom to choose if you have the freedom to be fully informed. If the instance you are on has “unofficial” rules they enforce, and they remove any comments of anyone discussing those “unofficial” rules. Then it is not moderation — but censorship.

[serpineslair@lemmy.world]

Yeah, I can totally see how that could be an issue. You're right, my bad. Just wondering if there is any way to truly beat censorship if this is the case?

[fundmecfsresearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

The decentralisation of the fediverse works well.

Ie. taking my previous example of lemmy.ml censoring any criticism of Russian and Chinese imperialism, under instance rule 1 which is basically “no bigotry”.

Well I’m not on lemmy.ml, and if I talk about it in non-lemmy.ml communities, lemmy.ml admins probably won’t bother banning me — that would be too much effort, so if a lemmy.ml user ventures to communities on other instances, they can learn about this censorship.

[from_d4rkness@lemmy.world]

In my opinion reddit was bad because of the closing of the source, and centralization and administration by a single corporation interested in profits, which results in the cesspool we know reddit as today. it was bad because of the format that lemmy inhabits, so I agree with you on this point.

[ulrich@feddit.org]

Yeah I didn't think so. God forbid you actually learn something. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

[explodicle@sh.itjust.works]

IMHO there's still hope in p2p mesh networking. It can't support high-bandwidth applications, but all the absolutely critical correspondence would work.

[ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com]

That's much more expensive than I would imagine! Hope you are fully funded. You're the best instance.

[der_fossyler@feddit.org]

i like it here and have no desire to switch over to big tech or any algorithm.

[yerbouti@sh.itjust.works]

The fedi could destroy the whole Gafam ecosystem overnight if people would just move to it. But most people are selfish idiots.

[gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de]

Yeah, it does give me hope. I've always been a lurker on Reddit, and it made me uneasy.

Here on feddit, i still find it difficult to express my thoughts in a direct and straightforward way, but at least i can try, and i feel like we're actually making progress, because people are listening and sometimes give well-thought-out responses. that makes me happy. We can both learn a lot.

Apart from that:

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.

Yeah, please do. I've calculated that hosting the fediverse costs approximately $2/year/user, but the numbers vary a bit depending on how many files you upload. So, that's not a lot, but for a few thousand users, it would still amount to something. So, please, donate if you can, even if it's only $5/year.

[moseschrute@lemmy.world]

I think that’s what I’m feeling actually. Technology stopped being fun, and although I’m too young for tech in the 90s, Fediverse and open source do make me enjoy tech again!

[moseschrute@lemmy.world]

That’s unproductive imo. Nobody ever convinced someone to change their mind by calling them a selfish idiot. Unless your goal is to not convince them.

[db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Yes, currently the monthly donations exceed our hosting costs!

[nutsack@lemmy.world]

no because its broken as fuck for me here in Vietnam since you all put the fucking api behind a cloudflare proxy

[yerbouti@sh.itjust.works]

Oh dont worry, that's not what I tell people.

[pls@lemmy.plaureano.nohost.me]

I like the concept of the fediverse, just like I liked Fidonet back in the 80’s (that allowed BBSs to “exchange” both forum contents, called “echomail”, and private messages).

I have some issues on sustainability (hosting costs money, moderation and system maintenance can be a pain) and the “donation” model. My solution is that while I host for myself, and don’t really mind having some guest on my platform, I don’t take / accept donations - ever. My instance dies the moment I don’t have the resources to maintain it (money, time or patience). The main reason I don’t take donations is really simple: I don’t want to owe anyone anything, this is not a job or a burden I have to carry.

I have been hosting systems for 35+ years, and it’s all good with no money involved. It’s a blast dealing with the tech, really love it. Most of my systems and either one or two users (me and the wife).