Comment on Imgur's Community Is In Full Revolt Against Its Owner
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 23 hours agoThe very nature of discussion boards mean that they’re always going to centralise discussion eventually, no matter how decentralised the user base is.
No one wants to have 25 different small tech communities that all post the same article, so they go to the one that has the most users. It took all of a week after the Reddit exodus for a few fediverse instances to become the clear centralised ones.
Decentralisation of user accounts is irrelevant and almost pointless when all of the discussion is centralised on one main instance. The only real way it can be decentralised in a way that matters is if every /technology (for example) essentially merge together and all instantly sync all comments and threads from all instances in real time, with automatic addition of new instances whenever they start a similar community. This brings many, many challenges though.
other_cat@lemmy.zip 23 hours ago
I will admit that I am not tech savvy enough to understand all the nuances. What I know is what I’ve read which is most likely popular opinion. So I definitely will credit your point.
This is a slight deviation from the topic at hand, but I do want to state that I have been thinking about pre… Web 2.0 I suppose we could call it? That sweet spot when the internet was fairly new but becoming popular enough that plenty of (youngish, at the time) people could navigate it. And there were a lot of challenges to get things people wanted to do. I remember struggling with image hosting so I could put a pretty picture in my signature on the forums I frequented. But where there is a will, there is a way. A lot of people figured out some sort of solution. It took varying levels of commitment and creativity. And I think that’s actually a good thing. I think it taught valuable skills and fostered curious mindsets. I don’t think it would be a bad thing if some of the tools of ease and convenience were taken away and people had to start figuring out alternative solutions, especially younger generations who haven’t been forced to do that.
Would they? I’m not sure. I’d like to be optimistic and say yes. But the pessimistic part of me thinks that if a web service giant were to fall, all it would do is create a vacuum for someone else to take their place. If Imgur were to somehow disappear because they were unprofitable, some other website would pop up in its place, promising everything users want and more, for free no less. Backed by venture capitalist money perhaps. Then, over time, succumbing to the same situation that it feels like every mainstream service does, trying to claw back that investment money and start turning a profit.
This is a bit of a rambling reply, I know, so apologies for making you read all this. I’m not looking to pick a fight. But I do stand by my pithy reaction image. I’m not sympathetic to Imgur. I’m not sure what the ‘best’ solution is, but I don’t think the constant pattern we’ve been seeing is the only one, let alone a good one.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 19 hours ago
I appreciate the reply, and I’m not out to pick a fight either :).
I think for the foreseeable future it’s just going to be rinse and repeat of imgur, as an example. A service is created to fit a need/desire, with good intentions of being free and bloat-free, but then starts showing ads and offering paid subscriptions, and takes investor money at which point you know it’s only a matter of time before it’s where we are now with imgur. It’s just the nature of popular services unfortunately - the cost to host them is astronomical, and I am pretty sure that 99% that even a rough estimate of what people in here think it costs is probably off by a factor of 1000x or more. Hosting anything that is used by thousands of people, especially when it involves videos and pictures.
Unless there is some revolution in internet speeds/bandwidth/etc there’s just no getting around this.
other_cat@lemmy.zip 19 hours ago
Sad times. :(