Scott M. Stolz

I am an entrepreneur, small business owner, author, and researcher. I am also working on an open source project called Neuhub.

I am posting from Hubzilla with Neuhub via ActivityPub.

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  • 75 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: November 27th, 2024

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  • It depends on how your platform handles unsolicited posts and whether it supports threads and the concept of conversation containers.

    For example, let’s compare Mastodon and Hubzilla.

    Mastodon does not notify you of replies to your posts, but does notify you if someone mentions you. It does not support threaded conversations, which means that anyone can comment on your post without your permission. You can block people, but that does not remove their posts or mentions.

    Hubzilla takes a different approach. Conversations are organized in threads, and the thread has a conversation owner. It is similar to how Facebook works in that regard. If you create a top level post on your own wall, you own that conversation. Similarly, if you post in a forum/group, the forum/group owns that conversation.

    As such, they can control who comments on it and even delete comments. You can even make private or group conversations that only certain people can participate in. Unsolicited comments are either discarded or accepted for moderation. They only appear if approved by the owner of the thread.

    And there are additional filtering and notification settings available.

    Because of this difference, undesired posts are more like to appear on Mastodon than on Hubzilla. And even if they do appear, they are easier to remove.

    The more tools you have to control notifications and what appears as replies to your posts, the better. But it also makes the system slightly more complicated. Think Facebook vs. Twitter. Both are social media, but how they handle things are very different.

    I am guessing that some platforms will fare better than others, and many platforms will have to adjust how they handle incoming posts as more people arrive in the fediverse.


  • @underscores

    In some cases it could also be people that genuinely want to follow you. People often talk about one topic but still care about other stuff.

    Many people fall into that category. I follow a lot of interesting accounts that have nothing to do with what I talk about on my channel. Sometimes you follow people because they know more about a subject than you do, or are just interesting.


  • This is one of the many reasons why I think decentralized social media, nomadic identity, and federated single sign on are the answer.

    One of the causes of enshitification is that the platforms are between two competing interests, and are themselves a third competing interest. Typically, business, consumers, and the owners of the social media network.

    Decentralized social media solves this by allowing consumers and businesses to be on their own websites, or a provider of their choice. No one in the middle controlling everything, and providers have to compete with each other.

    Another cause of enshitification is monopolies and lock in. They can treat you like crap because they know that you need them. And even if you can download your data, you can’t transfer it anywhere.

    Decentralized social media, nomadic identity, and federated single sign on solve this by giving people a choice of where their account is. They can self-host or choose a provider, and then move if they don’t like how they are being treated.

    I know a lot of people loath the idea of commercial entities coming to decentralized social media, but it would prevent entification, and give users the choice to follow or block commercial websites. The power would be transferred back to the people (users, consumers, members, etc.), which is where it should be.


  • I remember when Google Ads limited websites to three ads per page. That was tolerable for most users, and did not distract from the content. But then they made a huge change, and their default mode (which they wanted you to use) would automatically place dozens of ads or more throughout your content. And if your website had infinite scroll, there were infinite ads.

    This change, plus the realization that Google was tracking you and building a profile, lead to the the popularity of ad blockers.

    The popularity of ad blockers reduced revenue to websites, including news outlets. Content websites started putting up paywalls and selling premium content instead of giving it away for free.

    Google is basically killing the very thing that makes them money and it is affecting the entire internet. A perfect example of greed killing the golden goose.






  • Considering that different states and countries have different laws, which range from 12 to 16, it would be hard to find servers willing to host anyone under those ages.

    Since it is possible to host your own fediverse server, in some countries, it would be possible for the parents to setup a fediverse server that their child could use.

    This would only be legal in countries where “parental consent” is required. It would be illegal in countries where there is an absolute ban on children using social media.


  • @AnonomousWolf I would redefine it like this:

    • Very Easy: Works with common hosting platforms and non-developers can install it using simple instructions.
    • Easy: One-command Docker or install script, low resources, great documentation
    • Moderate: Docker or manual setup, some config, active community support
    • Hard: Complex setup, needs regular updates or custom config (e.g. DNS, spam)
    • Very Hard or Proprietary: Little to no self-hosting support, undocumented

  • @AnonomousWolf What if you can install it with only a couple of commands and Docker is not required? Docker should not be the gold standard.

    Option 1: Execute a couple commands to execute an install script.

    Option 2: Figure out what Docker is. Figure out that Docker is not installed. Research how to install Docker. Install Docker. Execute the the Docker command. Screw it up. Ask for help from a developer since you never heard of Docker before.

    Option 2 is way harder unless you are a developer and know what Docker is.

    It is not user friendly to install if you have to be a developer to install it! In fact, I would call that user-hostile because the average power user or administrator can’t install it.

    For “easy” I think it should have an install script (of any kind) and that it does not have to be Docker.

    For “very easy” it should be like the WordPress 5 minute install. Upload the files, set up the database, and go to a URL to configure it.