Nobody is stopping any of your bullet points from happening. Those are all options today. Any one of those groups can spin up an instance and nobody is going to stop them. Some already have
But isn’t the idea of forcing someone to (not) run their own server however they want antithetical to the whole concept of the fediverse?
You can defederate your personal server from open registration servers if you want. But you can’t “get rid of open registration instances.” That’s just stupid.
I am not saying that there should be an executive order to make open registrations illegal, or to force anyone to do it.
What I am saying is that the admins themselves should change their attitude about it. I understand that most of them are doing out of generosity and because they hope that by offering free spaces they will get more people to join, but I’d hope that by now most people would have realized that this is (a) not sustainable and (b) counterproductive. The reason that we don’t see a lot of the alternative models around is because the open registration instances suck out the air of everyone else in the economy.
If we keep working with this assumption that open registrations are fundamental to the Fediverse, we are going to continue is the slow decline to irrelevance. The Fediverse is never going to die, but it will be forever stunted in its potential.
That I can agree with. But I think it’s just inevitable growing pains. Free and open instances will, over time, shut down because they’re obviously unsustainable, so they won’t be sustained.
As they do, people will be left searching for instances to move to, and more and more, they’ll find that free instances just aren’t an available.
Free and open instances will, over time, shut down because they’re obviously unsustainable, so they won’t be sustained.
How many of the 5.5k users from lemm.ee are going to say “Lesson learned. If I want an instance that is sustainable I should look for a professional instance or run my own”? I’m not going to say zero, but I really doubt it’s going to be “more than 3”.
The problem here is that while individual instances may die, there is always a new sucker enthusiast coming up thinking “my server will be different”.
Lemm.ee didn’t shut down because it was financially unsustainable though. It shut down because the admin team didn’t want to do it anymore.
Plenty of people have offered to take lemm.ee on and AFAIK nothing has progressed, but handled in a different way there could have been continuity and no need for users to transition away.
Given that the issue wasn’t one of finance and rather one of effort/will, how does charging for access change anything? The owner could decide they have had enough, walk away, and shut everything down anyway, no?
It shut down because the admin team didn’t want to do it anymore.
It shut down because the admin team didn’t want to do it for free anymore. There were just too many people, too many bad actors for little reward. By charging for access, you manage to both increase the reward and reduce the amount of people, so the whole equation changes significantly.
how does charging for access change anything? The owner could decide they have had enough, walk away, and shut everything down anyway, no?
Sure, but the amount of pain that I get from my ~50 paying customers is infinitely less than the headaches that you’ll be getting.
Interesting… the more time passes and your previous arguments fall along with the instances that you supported, the more you are resorting to tone policing.
I didn’t insult anyone. You are putting names out there of admins of existing instances when I was talking about the general story of about how there are constant wheel of new people coming up.
You are gasping as straws, as if ostracizing me would ever validate your arguments. This is getting tiring.
How?
Nobody is stopping any of your bullet points from happening. Those are all options today. Any one of those groups can spin up an instance and nobody is going to stop them. Some already have
But isn’t the idea of forcing someone to (not) run their own server however they want antithetical to the whole concept of the fediverse?
You can defederate your personal server from open registration servers if you want. But you can’t “get rid of open registration instances.” That’s just stupid.
I am not saying that there should be an executive order to make open registrations illegal, or to force anyone to do it.
What I am saying is that the admins themselves should change their attitude about it. I understand that most of them are doing out of generosity and because they hope that by offering free spaces they will get more people to join, but I’d hope that by now most people would have realized that this is (a) not sustainable and (b) counterproductive. The reason that we don’t see a lot of the alternative models around is because the open registration instances suck out the air of everyone else in the economy.
If we keep working with this assumption that open registrations are fundamental to the Fediverse, we are going to continue is the slow decline to irrelevance. The Fediverse is never going to die, but it will be forever stunted in its potential.
That I can agree with. But I think it’s just inevitable growing pains. Free and open instances will, over time, shut down because they’re obviously unsustainable, so they won’t be sustained.
As they do, people will be left searching for instances to move to, and more and more, they’ll find that free instances just aren’t an available.
Then all the Fediverse is, is just a bump in the road for Reddit and Twitter.
How many of the 5.5k users from lemm.ee are going to say “Lesson learned. If I want an instance that is sustainable I should look for a professional instance or run my own”? I’m not going to say zero, but I really doubt it’s going to be “more than 3”.
The problem here is that while individual instances may die, there is always a new
suckerenthusiast coming up thinking “my server will be different”.Lemm.ee didn’t shut down because it was financially unsustainable though. It shut down because the admin team didn’t want to do it anymore.
Plenty of people have offered to take lemm.ee on and AFAIK nothing has progressed, but handled in a different way there could have been continuity and no need for users to transition away.
Given that the issue wasn’t one of finance and rather one of effort/will, how does charging for access change anything? The owner could decide they have had enough, walk away, and shut everything down anyway, no?
It shut down because the admin team didn’t want to do it for free anymore. There were just too many people, too many bad actors for little reward. By charging for access, you manage to both increase the reward and reduce the amount of people, so the whole equation changes significantly.
Sure, but the amount of pain that I get from my ~50 paying customers is infinitely less than the headaches that you’ll be getting.
Not the nicest way to talk about @[email protected], @[email protected] or @[email protected]
Interesting… the more time passes and your previous arguments fall along with the instances that you supported, the more you are resorting to tone policing.
If not insulting other people is tone policing, sure.
I didn’t insult anyone. You are putting names out there of admins of existing instances when I was talking about the general story of about how there are constant wheel of new people coming up.
You are gasping as straws, as if ostracizing me would ever validate your arguments. This is getting tiring.