I understand the danger with centralized platforms, but think decentralized platforms have a weakness to acknowledge also: it's hard to get people paid for their work on them. (Email got by, I suppose, but was never in need of huge, ongoing Trust & Safety staffing in the way that social media requires. What email did require, we eventually paid for with tracking.)
I'm enjoying Mastodon and hope it succeeds, but sometime soon these decentralized services will need to spend a lot more on everything, and I think it's a big unknown what happens then.
Post.news gets $$ by taking a cut of micropayments to the writers/publishers that publish there; potentially cutting the value of surveillance generally. Like Bluesky, they're not relearning moderation but in contrast, they have a clear and appropriate way to pay for it. And, of course, centralization simplifies the technical challenge greatly.
(Admittedly, a big problem with Post right now is that the true posters aren't there -- the vibe is kind of sterile.)
Anyway, decentralization has clear upsides. But there's something to be said for a centralized service with a socially aligned business model. It may be too optimistic to hope for Post and Mast/Bluesky/Nostr to form a duopoly that replaces Twitter, but for now that's my hope.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by jtds.
in defense of Post
I understand the danger with centralized platforms, but think decentralized platforms have a weakness to acknowledge also: it's hard to get people paid for their work on them. (Email got by, I suppose, but was never in need of huge, ongoing Trust & Safety staffing in the way that social media requires. What email did require, we eventually paid for with tracking.) I'm enjoying Mastodon and hope it succeeds, but sometime soon these decentralized services will need to spend a lot more on everything, and I think it's a big unknown what happens then. Post.news gets $$ by taking a cut of micropayments to the writers/publishers that publish there; potentially cutting the value of surveillance generally. Like Bluesky, they're not relearning moderation but in contrast, they have a clear and appropriate way to pay for it. And, of course, centralization simplifies the technical challenge greatly. (Admittedly, a big problem with Post right now is that the true posters aren't there -- the vibe is kind of sterile.) Anyway, decentralization has clear upsides. But there's something to be said for a centralized service with a socially aligned business model. It may be too optimistic to hope for Post and Mast/Bluesky/Nostr to form a duopoly that replaces Twitter, but for now that's my hope.