An era of the internet is ending, and we’re watching it happen practically in real time. Twitter has been on a steep and seemingly inexorable decline for, well, years, but especially since Elon Musk bought the company last fall and made a mess of the place. Reddit has spent the last couple of months self-immolating in similar ways, alienating its developers and users and hoping it can survive by sticking its head in the sand until the battle’s over. (I thought for a while that Reddit would eventually be the last good place left, but… nope.) TikTok remains ascendent — and looks ever more likely to be banned in some meaningful way. Instagram has turned into an entertainment platform; nobody’s on Facebook anymore…
I’m not so sure this is a decline of social as much as decline in the control of large corporate interests. Lemmy is getting going well from what I can see. There will be issues but Reddit did as it grew and Twitter made the fail whale meme for their issues. The internet was pretty awesome in the 90s when none of these large companies even existed.
I mean I am excited for the potential the fediverse has, but I do wonder how long until it becomes enshitified too. Every great new invention that serves the needs of the people always goes downhill at some point. Remember that television networks used to be an amazing platform for all our needs.
The nice thing is that if things do become shit on one instance, the rest just disconnect. The lack of total control over the system by one entity ensures that there is no complete capture to enable the enshitification from taking root and destroying what is good about it.
I am hopeful, but I am cautiously sceptical. I remember hearing about cryptocurrency taking off in 2011 and all about how it was decentralized and was immune to corruption etc and then a decade later seeing SBF types in the news.
The difference here is that there is no supposed or even desired value from the people participating here. We’re not all trying to get rich off of this, nor are we trying to replace all forms of communication here like many crypto purists wish would happen with Bitcoin replacing the dollar. Nothing rides on this being a success, perpetual growth isn’t necessary, and defederation doesn’t mean that our communities wouldn’t still have worth to us.
Here’s my hope as a 40-something who came of age when the internet was just taking off.
I REALLY HOPE this is the push we need to move away from corporate-owned social media. I have high hopes for federated platforms and forums that are much more like what the internet was when it started (but better because now we have mobile devices).
I realize a lot of people see social media as being some evil thing, but we also fail to realize how much good it has done. Marginalized communities have come together online and formed real movements. People living with health conditions have been connected to one another for support and also life-changing resources and care. People who were isolated because of disability found communities.
I would like to see old-fashioned blogs and RSS make a comeback. I’d like to see forums and federated sites like Lemmy take off. I’d like to see social media sites that have been given way too much weight in society collapse. I don’t think government or reputable media outlets should ever be using a corporate for-profit entity as a means for distributing information.
