Scripting News: Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Much of the story of The Matrix is the question of whether Neo is The One. Much of the best dialog in the movie is about that. In the world I live in today we're looking for The One for social media, the open platform that can replace the silos. The feeling is there is now a chance to do that, it wasn't there before and it may not be there again. #
Take a break from your busy day and study this picture. It's why Mastodon as a federated system is not going to work. #
Here's what happened.#
I decided to follow ProPublica.#
I clicked on the Follow button.#
The picture showed up with a very complicated set of instructions. It requires me to remember an address that I do not remember. #
Instead of following, I wrote this blog post, because it was simpler to do this and I'm tired of people ignoring this because I care about us getting this right. #
Why will it never work? Why is Mastodon not The One? I know, because I thought RSS should do what Twitter ended up doing and the main reason that happened is that to follow someone in Twitter is one click, and you're done, and I don't even want to write down the process for feeds because it's even worse than what it is in Mastodon today.#
Not that we didn't know this at the time, we did, or how to solve it at a technical level. I tried to get everyone to work with us on making subscription simple, but it didn't happen. Later I came to believe it couldn't. We could force everyone to use the same export format, that worked incredibly well. But every RSS reader developer acted as if they were the only product that did what they did and didn't want to do anything they didn't have to to make it easy for people to subscribe in other reader software. It's so convoluted and stupid, you have to figure the people making the actual decisions had never used an RSS reader and never wanted to subscribe to a feed. This, btw, is pretty common in the tech industry, product ignorance among key decision-makers. I even heard a CEO once boast that he didn't need to use the product because he's a 'market of one' as if all his customers were frankfurter meat? #Here's the bottom line. If subscription isn't one-click in your federated social media system, go back to the drawing board and re-do your architecture, because it won't work. #
PS: After writing the post I was calmer and remembered where my account was, and it was two steps from there to follow ProPublica on Mastodon.#
Linkblog items for the day.
Discussing The Matrix with a potential character in The Matrix with a catchy name, ChatGPT. openai.com
Texas abortion law made Miranda Michel carry twins who wouldn't survive. texastribune.org
We need diversity of opinion, not a mass of slurry that's formed into corporate frankfurter meat. scripting.com
Awareness at Death. macmillanlearning.com
Jasmine Adams, an NYC Woman, Was Attacked by a Deli Cashier Who Mistook Her for Trans. them.us
WordPress.com blogs can now be followed on Mastodon and other federated platforms. techcrunch.com
If subscription isn't one-click in your federated social media system, go back to the drawing board and re-do your architecture, because it won't work. scripting.com
You've Got A Friend In Me. youtube.com
House Republicans Show Where Israel Ranks. politicalwire.com
Dropbox is adding tons of AI—and is still serious about virtual work. fastcompany.com
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