This moment isn’t about decentralization
Ben Werdmuller (werd.io)I think it’s important to understand that what’s happening today in social media is not because decentralization’s time has come: it’s because Twitter’s time has gone.
Many of us have been wanting decentralized social networking for a long time — I’ve been a part of these conversations for around twenty years. It’s tempting to feel like people finally get it. But that’s a trap and a mistake. As always, quite rightly, most people want something that works for them. If decentralized tech gets them there better than the alternative (and I think it can!) then there’s a wonderful route forward for everyone. But decentralization is not the goal. The goal is always a human experience for people who do not and should not care how the sausage gets made.
Liking this and putting here with no comment, but a personal blog post on that topic may follow, tomorrow or in 3 years.
You need two women in your (heavily male-dominated) org
What makes RSS better than social timelines? – Tracy Durnell
Tracy Durnell (tracydurnell.com)Replied to The Fail Whale Cascade by Luke Harris (lkhrs.com)
I’m bored of what I call “the timeline era”. Scanning an unending stream of disconnected posts for topics of interest is no longer fun, I prefer deciding what to read based on titles, or topic-based discussion.
I am a huge fan of RSS…
Loved these nice little things about RSS feeds. (I also use a feed reader to follow my Mastodon timeline; it’s nice enough because I can just « mark all as read » if I’m not in the mood, and I don’t follow too many people, but it does have its limits.)
Week-end au hasard : Niort
On Glenique Frank Returning Her London Marathon Medal
Niko Stratis (Autostraddle)In sports, we point to the trans women who place second or third or 6,160th and say that we are not winning medals anyway, so why not let us in. That we are weakened by our hormones or the years of our lives and letting in what few of us are vying for position doesn’t hurt anybody., But then what happens when we succeed? What does this say of trans women who work and train and struggle to compete with the desire to win in their hearts. They are not great betrayers of the cause by simply choosing to excel. We should all be so lucky to find ourselves at the front of the pack.
On the right to thrive and perform well as trans women in sports – can we get another narrative than « oh but trans women don’t actually win », which is currently true, but also so demeaning?
The fediverse and the AT Protocol
Ben Werdmuller (werd.io)Ryan discusses the differences between the fediverse and the AT Protocol:
I’m probably being a bit presumptuous, but I think there’s actually a difference between a European and American mindset here. (Mastodon is headquartered in Germany while Bluesky is rooted in San Francisco and Austin.)
Interesting take on a cultural reason why BlueSky and ActivityPub might be so different in design and in their relationship to community.