I made a minimal website using Hugo just for writing blogs so I don’t have to post them in groups as posts. Hope it’s fine here. This is not a promotion. No tracking links either.
The red pill is the answer.
I’m hoping this guy just hasn’t consumed any popular media in the past fifteen years because that term has been associated with some pretty specific communities…
Which ones? Red = Trumpers or something?
Manosphere
Used to be there was a sub Reddit called theredpill which was basically all about being an asshole to women for personal gain. (Something like that I don’t remember the actual message)
I’m out of the loop.
A bunch of weird woman-hating incels co-opted the “redpill” language. I first saw it on /r/redpilll but I’m not sure that’s the origin. It honestly probably emerged from gamergate. Essentially, they rejected the notion that being a “nice guy” gets you anywhere in life. They promoted shit like “negging” instead, which was the idea that women will find you more interesting if you insult them. There was more heinous stuff than that, but you get the idea.
Redpill/blackpill/“___pilled” has become common gen z slang. Sure, the incels propagated it, but its teeth were removed like 5 years ago
Fuck, I’m old for all of this shit. It’s boatload of bullshit wrapped in a giant dumb-taco.
Unfortunately, it is simply impossible for me to stop using Facebook.
I never started.
The only valide excuse
As with all things involving humans, you can’t really change minds with facts. It’s just emotions and peer pressure.
Not a bad post, but I expect it won’t sway people who aren’t already on board.
Because of not having enough time and money to maintain the app, like the implementation of encryption and new features, founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton accepted the deal and sold the app for $19 billion to Mark Zuckerberg.
I imagine I’d also find that I don’t have enough time and money to maintain something if someone offered me $19 billion for it.
😅 😂
Yah. Most ppl would. Not all! But most.
Which creates a perverse incentive, right? The ppl making s/w with no malware, no spyware, they are lucky if they even make a living. Often they do it volunteer, or for low income. But those who do it to amass power, and sell that power to somebody, as here, they can roll in money.
To fix the whole s/w world, I believe we must fix the bad incentives. Might be lots of ways to do it, but it certainly helps a lot, if most ppl shun spyware. And support OSS authors who are genuine about keeping it out. Right now, most ppl do the opposite.
To be fair to Brian Acton, afterward, he did co-found the Signal foundation and give it a hundred million dollar zero-interest loan.
Hang on… that’s not a gift. The hard work is making money from free software. You’ve indebted a foundation to the sum of $100,000,000.00 and you’re telling them:
A) pay it back
B) via commercializing free software
How the fuck do you do that? You can’t. What the fuck does a piece of software need that exorbitant amount for anyway? I guess that’s why Signal never really was libre software. There’s too much money to be made in spyware.
Generally couldn’t agree more, but
What the fuck does a piece of software need that exorbitant amount for anyway?
For a widely used chat app with calling and video calling, servers.
A self-inflicted burden because they refuse to liberate the server side code. Besides, they can’t be burning through that reserve as they need to pay it back and how on earth are they going to do that?
You’re talking about that?
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server
They refuse to federate, and the code does not include any federation mechanism. But it sure looks liberated enough to me.
matlag
Actually yes. I did not know they released this. I still think my point stands: it’s a self imposed burden that is not relieved by spending loaned capital. That only has increased their burdens, because not only do they have to continuously pay for a large quantity of computer resources they have to repay debts and find a way of financing all of it sustainably.
I don’t know a lot about signal. My understanding was open-source clients existed, but the server’s software was proprietary. I’ve since read the Wikipedia page and Signal’s servers were once federated: “Signal’s server architecture was federated between December 2013 and February 2016.” That later date is when they ceased federation, claiming it held back the project.
I don’t like Signal. The people behind it are the benefactors of looters that reside in Silicon Valley. The project purports to be a non-profit, but burns capital that was accrued in and by Silicon Valley. It could not exist without surveillance-capitalism. Though that’s a critique of, perhaps, the entire software economy. Its members are too closely related to its major players though, being ex-employees.
For encrypted communications I would like to direct readers to GNUnet. The entire internet is incompatible with the ideals of privacy and security. You can mount applications on top of it, but the underlying framework is not appropriate. GNUnet is an attempt at creating a secure, decentralized internet. It’s a worthwhile project.
deleted by creator
Same as what it took to have it take the whole market: a better alternative and enough advertisement for a critical mass of people to migrate at once, so that they stay active there.
Then the rest will flock more or less progressively.
what would it realistically take to move an entire country off of whatsapp?
Wisdom.
Since ever filtered in the Portmaster
Me too. via NextDNS.
This is the way
I gave up on Facebook. I’ve been using the MEWE platform for a long time. I replaced YouTube with Odysee. And for messengers I have Signal, Viber, Line, Telegram, Ratspeak.
I really want to. But around here it’s the de facto Craigslist, really really good for farm supplies and all sorts of used things. And well people use it for the events side, and there’s lots of specific interest groups that are very active and informative. Which is why it’s so hard for me to leave despite the fact I’d enjoy it if Zuck chucks himself into a volcano. I suppose I can just keep making sure I dont click a single ad, though I’m sure they’re making money off me somehow. A frustrating situation.
it’s going to have to burn people. they’re that dumb.
The only problem is market place. If you want to seel of buy something locally. Everyone has switched to that.
Craigslist still exists.
A lot of what is in this article is already common knowledge. And there’s definitely a “sky is falling” spin to it.
Meta is shit and Zuck can kiss my ass, but the article is a bit sensational.
Hello, not sure you are aware, but you can write blogs articles on Plume to be on ActivityPub directly.
I heard about Writefreely, but Plum is new for me. Also, I checked out that website and saw this.
Project status
Currently, Plume developers have less time, and Plume is not actively maintained. New features may take time to be implemented. Could you consider similar-purpose software? WriteFreely, WordPress with the ActivityPub plugin, and so on?
Anyway, I will check it out and try to write on those platforms if possible.
Sad to hear development is staled. I used to write articles on Plume several years ago and it worked just fine (not sure about Lemmy federation though). WriteFreely was very similar, though it does not support comments IIRC.
deleted by creator
is it just an American thing or does nobody else know anyone thst uses WhatsApp
Actually, it’s the opposite. In many countries other than America, WhatsApp is the default messenger for everything, including government services. And all these privacy flaws also affect them too.
Used to be Skype
It’s probably similar in Poland. Never had a friend who used WhatsApp.
just an american thing, its widely used here in new zealand
