this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
10 points (100.0% liked)
Fediverse
287 readers
1 users here now
This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.
founded 2 years ago
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What’s the resell value of an instance?
I think the person you replied to is still stuck in the mindset of a siloed product, like reddit. Federation across instances means that there's little commercial value in any specific instance, in my view. If any specific instance was sold, and an attempt to monetize arose, I suspect people would simply abandon it for a new instance.
As an aside, lemmy/kbin need to implement a way to export/import follow lists.
And notably after moving instance they would still have the same access to all the same posts, comments and content.
On the export comment I agree too. Mastodon even lets you port your whole profile.
Other people's posts / content. What about the user's own content? Sure plenty of people don't care, but there is a working set of people who do produce content online, who care about the visibility and longevity of their output.
On Mastodon your followers stay with you if you move instances. I expect in time this will also be true here.
About tree fiddy
The value of an instance is a function of the number of his registered users.
Facebook bought Instagram for the price of ~$30 per user.
Yeah, sure for ad revenue.
Fediverse hasn't been monetized though, so there's no expected ad revenue. Patreons and other donations are not revenue.
You are basically just buying a bunch of hosting costs
Facebook bought the adoption, they bought the users.
You miss-represent the fediverse. Users aren't locked in. If someone buys one instance and you don't like it, you move. You still have all the same access, all the same content. An instance is only an access point, in many ways it is like an ISP, and people jump service providers all the time.
Do you understand what siphoning business means? What business do you think Facebook is in? It wasn't users. It was ads.
There is only one metric for a social network, the number of users.
Youtube channel? subscribers
Twitch channel? subscribers
Twitter? Followers
That's about who gathers the most people, end of the line. If an instance managed to become a pole of gravity then it will be worth money.
And before you tell me that you can subscribe to a different instance, well, you can also subscribe to a different social network.
but fine, we disagree.
An instance isn't the social network though. The fediverse is. You're missing the whole point.
Well I can see one thing that kinda belies your point of view at present. Stability. Some people have presciently worried that their instance can implode, taking all content a user has made with it. Larger instances that are more stable, that have more backup infrastructure and ongoing commitment to operations, could out-compete smaller instances. Why this might arise, could be a historical accident of successful crowdfunding campaigns or something. I'm not sure how someone might do a better job of securing more server resources than others. Obviously a deep pocketed corporation who wants to influence the Fediverse, could do that.