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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Thank you for your responses. It really makes me think about the meaning of portability:

    Are you moving your identity? (e.g. implementing something like instance-agnostic user PGP keys)

    Your data? The posts and comments you’ve contributed, which would only make sense with the context of the entire thread.

    How would the contents of entire communities be migrated? I presume that’s where the valuable content is for potential buyers either to drive ad traffic or train models.


  • I hope I’m wrong, but… I think network effects could lead to a single instance becoming dominant and therefore vulnerable to such a takeover/sellout. I’m less sure about this, but perhaps non-technical users don’t understand the concept of federated instances and flock to a single one. Perhaps there are other tangible benefits of everyone being on a single instance. Just because the protocol allows for decentralization, doesn’t mean it will naturally happen. E.g. How many email users are on Microsoft exchange/outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo?

    I love the concept of your own data being portable, but am afraid there might be other factors that somehow naturally lead to centralization. Please change my mind!