I think you've missed the point: it's Americentric to assume that Navy SEALs and Army Rangers are inherently pure, good and have done nothing evil on behalf of the American government when we largely know that to be untrue.
There's not nearly enough public information to discern whether or not this had anything to do with stored PII or lawful interception. All we know is that they geolocated subscribers.
The SS7 protocol provides the ability to determine which RNC/MMC a phone is paired with at any given time: it's fundamental to the nature of the functioning of the network. A sufficiently sophisticated adversary, with sufficient access to telephony hardware, could simply issue those protocol instructions to determine the location.
Right but _they_ are talking about the IRS. If the US government wanted to end crypto, they would give it a whole lot better shot than Nigeria and Argentina.
> It's not like those products can't evolve. The developers and communities behind these products can, and most likely will, do things to help with adoption of the services they've created. This isn't like the book of Genesis. Just like how some deity didn't create the earth in six days and then rested it's not like new features won't be added or different federated offerings won't appear.
The _entire_ point of my first post was my finishing sentence:
> I wish people would focus on building services that meet peoples needs and not just as an expression of their ideologies.
Put more plainly: these services have been around for a decade (diaspora* was a viable alternative to Digg before Reddit) without meaningful adoption _or_ evolution in spite of that lack of adoption. I surmise it's because the folks developing them are more interested in the ideologies than building communities.
Obviously they can change. Obviously they can become a better fit with a bigger focus on UX. But they haven't in the last decade and I'm not seeing any indication they will this one, either.
I'm not all over the place. You're just exactly the frustrating personality type I'm talking about: one who is hyperfixated on the technology and the decentralized nature who can't see the forest for the trees and is more interested in arguing the minutia.
I'm content in my belief that we won't see a mass adopted Fediverse technology replace Reddit in my lifetime. I think theres a variety of reasons for this but the people involved in the development and advocacy of the products and their inability to listen to any feedback are the biggest one. They think they've got this _allllll_ figured out and it's just humanity that needs to evolve to meet them.
I'll come back here and apologise if I'm wrong. I don't see that happening, though.
Those two points are not contrary. The quote you pasted does not dispute my point at all. Your emphasis is my point that the fact that the service is decentralized does not allow it to make up for the fact that it does not meet the needs of the users.
It does for some people -- some people value the fact that it's decentralized over other needs -- but my point is the vast majority of people don't care as long as the information they need is there and accessible. The fact that it's decentralized is, in itself, not enough.
EDIT: And to be clear: I think the fact that it's decentralized doesn't preclude it from having those other properties that users value just that the developers of Fediverse applications don't seem to realize that they need to do something more than make it decentralized. That's the entire essence of my post.
> You're claiming that decentralised services won't see wide spread adoption because it doesn't conform to how things work on Reddit.
That is explicitly not what I said. What I said was:
> What I think is that people have become accustomed to having a wide array of information on a wide array of topics easily indexed and accessible. What I think is that people value that accessibility of information.
A replacement doesn't have to work how Reddit works. It just has to provide some of the same value.
If you think Reddit is social media in the same sense that Facebook is then I think we're coming at this from very difficult angles.
Reddit is more akin to Wikipedia than it is to Facebook at this point for many people. Yes, much of the popularity comes from interacting with others but it's also become a hive of up-to-date information and opinions for hobbies, for trades, etc.
If I start a new hobby I don't need to go find the 10 year old abandoned page or the SEO manipulated AI generated summary. I just go to /r/hobby. New espresso machine? /r/espresso. I want to know what 3d printer to buy? /r/3dprinters. Damage to my roof? /r/roofing. I don't know how to do some maintenance on my house? /r/homeowners. I need to buy a new car but I don't know how to get a good deal? /r/askcarsales.
There's a lot more at play here than the stale "social media bad, algorithms manipulate society" take.
I'd take a wager that we'll see Digg 3.0/Reddit 2.0 before we'll see widespread adoption of the Fediverse.
I don't think people are cattle and I think that is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent my position. I don't think people are cattle. I think they are anything but: I think they have made a conscious decision about what they want and value.
What I think is that people have become accustomed to having a wide array of information on a wide array of topics easily indexed and accessible. What I think is that people value that accessibility of information. And I think that products like Lemmy don't meet that requirement and so something like Reddit will always exist, regardless of the centralized corporate ownership.
It's ironic that I posted "federated services are difficult to engage with because the people designing and advocating for them are more interested in ramming an ideology down your throat and condescending you than they are providing a service" and a bunch of people responded by ramming their ideology down my throat and condescending me.
Yes, I acknowledge that not every service needs to be a mega service that everyone flocks to. Yes, I acknowledge that multiple products can exist than when combined replace a prior, larger service. Yes, I acknowledge that Lemmy, Mastodon, Diaspora or whatever else you like is great and fine for you and I'm happy for you and that's OK.
No, I don't think any of these services will realistically replace Reddit and I think that if Reddit dies then Digg 3.0 will spring up in it's place.
> It does not need the popularity of reddit to be valid.
I never said it was invalid. This isn't an attack on the technology. It's OK. You can calm down. It's my opinion that it isn't a drop-in replacement for Reddit and unlikely to see widespread adoption or prevent another Reddit from appearing.
It's like talking to Web3 zealots. I'm not attacking you, I promise.
> And it does not need to be designed explicitly for the layperson.
It does if it wants to be as useful as Reddit is today and Digg was before it or achieve the same popularity. You argue that we don't need a single service to be popular and that's OK but I live in reality.
You're comparing apples and oranges. You acknowledge that Lemmy does not attempt to be everything Reddit is today. I'm suggesting that that leaves a gap and people are interested in that gap.
People have become accustumed to having a single location to visit to obtain a depth of knowledge on a wide breadth of topics. I don't think, and I think you acknowledge, that Lemmy attempts to fill that need. And thus something like Reddit 2.0/Digg 3.0 will always exist.
> You're insisting things have to work a certain way in order for them to have value and be usable. Things don't have to operate in a specific, fixed way.
No, I'm not. I'm staying on the topic of the thread you're posting in: Reddit's future and where people may or may not migrate to. You're doing exactly what I accused the creators of Fediverse technologies are doing: fixating on the ideology and taking an opportunity to preach.
I see the value of the Fediverse. I see the intent. I understand it. It's not complex.
But it isn't a replacement for Reddit. I don't even think you're arguing that. I think you're trying to get me to debate some strawman. I never said the Fediverse has no value. I said it has no mainstream appeal so long as people prioritize the ideology of the technology over the use case.
> Things change. How people learn about stuff, how they use technologies, how they think about them, it all changes. It was once a widely shared opinion that computers would never catch on. Or that the internet wouldn't catch on. Or any other number of things wouldn't catch on. And they did, despite anyone's objections that it would.
This is an argument that things _can_ change not that things _will_ change. Plenty of things never caught on. On that note, Diaspora existed as a widely available alternative to Digg when Digg died.
I'm not sure if this is meant to be some kind of childish insult or gotcha but no: I'm talking in representation of luddites.
> A social network doesn't require millions of users to be useful. It's okay that they're not for everyone.
That might be true if you only ever want to read technical things with a technical audience in a technical forum. But that's not why Reddit is valuable or popular. Lemmy is an alternative to Reddit like water is an alternative to beer. Sure, they exist in the same kind of universe, but no sane person would tell you to switch from water to beer because they don't meet the same needs.
Reddit is popular because I can read /r/netsec one day and /r/lawncare the next. Because when I wanted to learn to make my own coffee at home I knew I could just go to /r/espresso and get a 101. When my 3D printer broke, I knew I could go to /r/bambulab and ask for help. When the historic winter we just had in NorCal ripped shingles off my roof, I knew I could go to /r/roofing to ask for advice.
Sure, you might want to live in a world where you only talk to software engineers about software and maybe Lemmy is a good fit for that.
> It works until it doesn’t: when the host of a centralized community decides to make enemies with its users.
And yet in spite of this very thing happening, Lemmy and Mastodon remain largely unadopted.
Diaspora* existed during the Digg implosion and where did people flock to? No, not the decentralized Fediverse, but to another centralized service. Because it meets their needs. Their needs from a product _aren't_ that it be decentralized. Their needs are that it is easily accessible, that information is easily indexed and searchable, that interacting with users is obvious and transparent, etc.
These are all needs that Fediverse products have not met well because they're too focused on their agenda and their ideology, not their product.
Email works because despite it's decentralized nature, it's functionally transparent to the user and you aren't constantly forced to acknowledge that nature.
The issue with "Fediverse" technologies is not dissimilar from crypto: it's designers care more about the ideology and the concept of being in the fediverse than they do meeting an actual product need.
In spite of a _dire_ gap in the market place and a substantial marketing opportunity to pick up market share, Lemmy and Mastodon remain largely unadopted by the masses and will likely remain in a similar market place as Diaspora*.
Federated services will never become mainstream. This is just the reality that people need to come to accept. I find them heavily talked about in circles with my colleagues and in my profession but the attraction of decentralized services just isn't there for the vast majority of people.
I find Lemmy frustrating to use and it isn't just growing pains: it's the same reason I find Mastodon frustrating. Do I care if [email protected] matters? Do I care if I use lemmy.world or do I have to find some server? Which server?
Centralization works. It's convenient. It doesn't require a user guide. It's approachable for laypersons.
This is just the reality. I wish people would focus on building services that meet peoples needs and not just as an expression of their idealogies.
Cache is probably a good guess. I don't do infinite scrolls but I do use Reddit mostly for hobby subreddits which aren't as popular and less likely to be in cache.
I imagine it probably has some to do with specific geography as well. Cloudflare will proxy back to nearest node and maybe some are better than others.