the author of the article is Claire L. Evans btw, author of "Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made The Internet"

@amylsacks @charlyblack I keep having to remind myself that "big" (sometimes) had an intrinic value in relation to culture. it still was creating someone's work as a silo (silos, bad), but *sometimes* -- as in, not that often -- that bigness had something that translated to a larger meaning for millions of people, or at least thousands.

i'm no longer sure that's possible, or desirable. It seems increasingly bankrupt, so to speak.

@amylsacks @charlyblack

For example: Nina Simone.

On the one hand, that bigness provided her with a mechanism for social transformation, while also providing her with a career.

*However*, it's also true that her real desire in life was to be a concert pianist, and that didn't happen, because racism. What sort of asshole turns down Nina Simone? 🤦🏽‍♀️ (purely rhetorical question)

@amylsacks @charlyblack

Where's the larger sense of sustainability and vision that allows someone like Nina Simone to thrive as a black woman in the US?

@shoutcacophony with concepts like the federation, it could (perhaps, depending on how the tech design goes) have both perks, the richness of a global network, with the value of local communities and nodes..

@charlyblack there's still the problem of it all still being under capitalism, but it's not like that's 100% insurmountable, either.

at least in the sense of providing a better degree of stability and access to resources. maybe.

@charlyblack tbh, that's pretty generous. i don't think capitalism is redeemable, even partially, and it's wrong-minded to even try, because it's a mirage.

*that said*, less shitty would be nice :p

@amylsacks I would say that *that* kind of echo-chamber popularity is worth nothing

@charlyblack @amylsacks I'd only add: even having a couple of thousand followers on bird site was like a huge, enervating juggle for me. All the more because I refused, if not am literally incapable of, the sorts of "you're one of the little people" now sorts of machinations that even going down that road a bit further starts to demand.

I was at capacity for either "cashing in" my humanity or falling apart. I've seen both happen, sometimes at the same time

@charlyblack @amylsacks

multimedia, 1995: $0 billion industry collapses 📉

social media, 2018: we are all $0 billion industries now 💃🏽

@StuC I have it in a to-read list :) I hope I can put my hands on it soon enough

@charlyblack
OTOH, the purpose of socnets is communication in general. Therefore, no post is against that purpose, because it is a communication. And people expect to be able to say just about anything on the socnets, which means the moderators cannot enforce quality because
a) they don't have a goal by which a value of a post can be measured, and
b) people are upset when you try to moderate what they say.