this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2023
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It's my hope that decentralization and federation can help preserve much of the small-sub vibes while scaling up.
It helps, too, that the instances aren't chasing profit.
Yeah exactly I honestly I think that's the single biggest factor in what makes the fediverse superior
You can make a social network profitable or you can make it healthy for its users, but I am entirely unconvinced you can do both.
Maintaining social networks and moderating them should be a legitimate job where people are meaningfully rewarded for their effort, but that is different.
I'm with you 100%, but I'm also becoming convinced that the quality of work from volunteer moderators who are members of the community and are motivated by maintaining the health of said community is going to be significantly better than the efforts of someone who is paid to do the same thing.
Well I am fine with that but let us not unintentionally extract the passion for the fediverse out of amazing people by expecting them to do difficult work without supporting them in a way that is sustainable.
Maybe one can do both, balancing them to some degree. Maybe. For a short time. But it seems we have several examples suggesting that maximizing short term profit can only come at the expense of a healthy, valued user experience.
Profit is so often at cross purposes with anything good or nice or enjoyable.