Comment on Mastodon Exit Interview

• rglullis@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Yes, they do like the personalized algorithmic feed, and that is inseperable from the surveillance part.

  There is absolutely nothing stopping the personalization algorithms to run on-device or delegated to a separate service from the video feed.

  they certainly don’t want to pay for it either.

  It doesn’t have to be a “donation/public funding” vs “ads/surveillance capitalism” dichotomy. I bet we can find alternative models of governance and funding, provided we get to a place Fediverse is relevant enough to attract the attention of some small business, media channels, institutions, etc.

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  • poVoq@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    There is absolutely nothing stopping the personalization algorithms to run on-device or delegated to a separate service from the video feed.

    But that is not how the TikTok recommendation algorithm works and doing it locally only would be a very poor substitute most likely, as it seem to also recommend what other people with a similar behavior pattern have liked. And the same algorithm is used to identify suitable targets for advertisers, so the two are basically inseparable.

    provided we get to a place Fediverse is relevant enough to attract the attention of some small business, media channels, institutions, etc.

    That’s like saying the community garden needs to be relevant enough to attract a seed shop and a fast-food stand etc. And a few weeks later there is no more community garden but rather a strip mall owned by the local oligopolists renting out booths to entrepreneurs. That is just not helpful at all, because it destroys the very foundation of what the Fediverse tries to achieve.

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    • rglullis@communick.news ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      would be a very poor substitute most likely

      • phanpy is already doing it for Mastodon, and there are plenty of people satisfied with it.
      • You have no idea how far one can go by getting a generic training model and fine-tuning on the device
      • we don’t need to have something a perfect replacement. We just need “good enough”.
      • even if it is not perfect, it is better than the nothing that reactionary “no algorithm in the Fediverse!” crowd is bringing to the table.

      That is just not helpful at all, because it destroys the very foundation of what the Fediverse tries to achieve.

      Says who? You and the gatekeepers who’d rather have everyone stuck in the past, just to preserve some technical/ideological purity?

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      • poVoq@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        You are mixing up two topics here. If someone wants to experiment with a local only algorithmic feed that’s fine, but I can practically guarantee that this will never be enough to convince people to switch from TikTok and the like.

        And the other topic is about commercialization. You are the one stuck in the past thinking that is the only way for the Fediverse to succeed. Quite on the contrary, if anyone seriously tried that it would fail quickly and just result in burned investments and a lot of goodwill towards the Fediverse lost.

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