Leo Betschart @betschart@qoto.org

"In our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one’s work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it.”
- David Graeber

Pretty incredible to think that attacking your advertisers for cutting back their spending is going to cause more companies to advertise.

Remember Tesla, somewhat famously, refuses to advertise at all. According to [checks notes] Elon Musk, apparently that means Tesla is against free speech

I like Cory Doctorow's @doctorow analysis of how social media giants fall.

In short: in the process of *enshittification* (get on it, New Palgrave), network externalities allow the platforms to capture almost all of the surplus and sell it to advertisers etc, leaving users nearly indifferent about leaving the platform.

When a shock hits the system, the switching cascade can be rapid because no one has a good reason to stay around anyway.

https://doctorow.medium.com/social-quitting-1ce85b67b456

I've been on Mastodon for 220 days now (I joined when Apartheid Clyde first talked about buying the birdsite).

I have been encouraged by the growth, diversity, and dynamism of this community in the time that I have been here. We have a golden opportunity to build a place that is NOT dominated by algorithms to keep you scrolling, that is NOT based on surveillance capitalism, that is NOT an echo chamber for other people's outrage.

It has changed me. I will never use non-FOSS social media again!

bin mega gespannt, ob am 1.1. wirklich ein neues Jahr beginnt oder ob einfach 2020 zum dritten Mal verlängert wird

To be fair, the late Bruno Latour offers a different and more explanation that I think also has considerable merit. For Latour citation is about power; it's something that the author uses to exert leverage against the solitary reader.

"You want to dispute my claims? Then you're going to have to come for all of us. Me, and my homies lined up behind me. [18,20,23-36]."

Quick little tip: You don't need to use link shorteners on Mastodon.

All links on Mastodon count for 23 characters towards your limit, no matter how many characters they really are.

However, you need to include https:// at the beginning of links to make them clickable.

I really think we need to move away from @ChemDraw. The last price hike was just so extraordinary that it's forced @UTSWNews to move to limited seat models… How the hell are smaller schools paying for this? It was $12,000 for a single year!

Oh dear. I've just been informed that collecting the names of every person on the planet for my naughty and nice lists is, and I quote, “a significant and wholly irresponsible breach of #GDPR “.
I'm going to hand out about 8 billion consent forms soon. If you could all get them back to me ASAP that would be appreciated.

With "Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker" this weekend, I have now dutifully watched all the #StarWars movies.

Fond memories of the original trilogy, where the storyline still seemed to make a little sense ...

And the award for best #mastodon #introduction of the day goes to...

https://mstdn.social/@alhaig/109362557032076565

@filmcritic
Sometimes history doesn't repeat itself. Sometimes it picks up a club and says "Weren't you listening the first time?" --#TerryPratchett

@betschart @ct_bergstrom

"Kill your darlings", as they say

@betschart @ct_bergstrom

“Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

(quoting a college tutor)
James Boswell • Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) 30 April 1773

https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00005955

@betschart @ct_bergstrom I've heard that phrased as "Kill your darlings." Some people save their murdered darlings in special files that they go to for inspiration later on. Useful if the text snippet is going on a tangent. Later on you can develop it into a full-fledged feature if it holds up.