With Discord announcing age verification globally, people are searching for alternatives. But a Discord alternative on the open social web might just look structurally quite different.
With Discord announcing age verification globally, people are searching for alternatives. But a Discord alternative on the open social web might just look structurally quite different.
Gonna say it aloud for the unweaned masses in the back.
The main problematic issue with most “we need an alternative for Yplatform in the Fediverse!” speech is the use of the singular. We are never going to get a good thing going if we push for “everything-app” platforms because they’ll be everything-apps, and the push of power is irresistible. Also, everything apps are much harder to develop for the same base feature set (“share a message” is easy in text, quadratically much harder on video), which is why VC-funded capital can do it.
We have to accept that what we need is alternatives, plural, to the various things that Discord and other platforms centralize. Because half the point here is we are against centralization. And allowing each project to focus on each problem separately allows them to take advantage of their own strengths, up to and including funding and provisioning (“get storage for a million items” is trivial on text; quadratically much harder on video).
We need a text messaging platform? XMPP already exists. Let’s go help.
We need audio chats? Mumble already exists. Let’s go help.
We need instant notifications? Surely something already exists. Let’s go help.
We don’t need “a walled garden but on the Fediverse”.
I agree with you, and I think there’s a tension between the technical solution (meeting users where they are) and political solution (persuading the users to come to our way of thinking).
The technical solution is an unequal fight. We have to provide a familiar and equally good experience - integrating everything into these easy-to-use everything apps, on a shoestring budget compared to the proprietary apps. And, without the “education”, users will converge on particular instances because that’s what’s most convenient, giving a lot of power to particular players in the network.
If we can persuade people to prioritise freedom over convenience, then we end up with a much more resilient userbase who will go help with the existing networks.
I don’t know how we can make people care, though. The free software movement has been trying for 40 years to make regular users care, but the message only really lands with developers. There’s certainly more interest in taking down big tech nowadays, but convenience still seems to come first.