I'm Anti Anti-Growth and Anti-Commerce on Open Social Media

I don’t like it when people say “People on this platform are like this” – because all platforms contain multitudes. However, one quite prevalent multitude on Mastodon, and other open social media platforms,¹ is the idea of being against growth and commercial activity on these platforms. And while I agree with some parts of these notions, in general, I really don’t agree with them.

The reason can be summed up in three points:

1. If we agree that open social media, free from ad-tech monopolies, is a good thing, everyone deserves the chance to take part in it.
2. This includes those who use online platforms to make a living, and those who want to follow them.
3. And resources flowing through the ecosystem, makes it more realistic to achieve this goal.

Let’s name this abstract “good thing” after something else most people agree is good: Cake

I think everyone deserves cake! But we might have to bake more of it to have enough to go around. And being able to do that, and delivering it in a safe and timely manner, is a big challenge.

Nuances on growth

So, the main reason I think there should be some focus on growth, is that everyone deserves things like good privacy.² And to achieve this, we need to focus on accessibility, usability, communication, actually being enjoyable, and more. Now, some of those who argue against growth, are really talking about being against “growth at all cost”, “growing past the security measures”³, etc. And with that, I’m 100% aligned.

Nuances on commercialisation

Lots of the commercial activity online is toxic, in many ways⁴ – and we absolutely shouldn’t welcome everything. But there’s also lots of commercial activity that’s absolutely fine! Some examples include promoting art, creating content, offering services (IRL or online), and selling products.

The current landscape is dominated by ad-tech, lock-in and opaque algorithms.⁵ But we’ll never get past this, and to a better place, if we don’t allow commercial activity. Instead, we must work on making this activity healthier. That is why I strongly agree on being critical towards ideas!

A good example of someone trying to build something healthy, is Sub Club, for creating paid subscriptions via ActivityPub. This post, by Anuj Ahooja, sums it up well:

Three neat features of sub.club:

1. You can post to premium subscribers by DMing your sub.club from your existing Fediverse account. 🤌🏼
2. There's already an API, so devs can integrate with the platform from day one. 🔌
3. Ice Cubes and Mammoth are the first clients to have a 'subscribe' button for sub.club, and it'll show up on other apps soon. 💲

The long-term goal is standardised "Subscribe" button for every premium subscription platform on the Fediverse, not just sub.club.

As it’s built on ActivityPub, users would be able to follow the creators on whichever platform they prefer. And I also like the long-term goal.

But of course, there were comments like this beneath the launch post:

I’m not sure what you’re on, but late stage capitalism will NEVER work on the fediverse.

That is not the culture here, never has been, and almost definitely never will be.

And this is the notion I just find so misguided. Like, if you have specific criticism of sub.club, that’s fine! But by lumping it together “late stage capitalism”, without giving any justification, it just seems like anything related to making money = evil. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the only alternative to open social media is the ad-tech monopolies. And I think it’s pretty crummy to demand that those who make money online, and those who want to follow them, stay there.

Sub.club also plans to be useful for making it easier for instances to be funded. I love amateur instances, funded by donations, as much as the next guy. But if we want cake for everyone, safely, we need people to be able to do the necessary work. And people require money (to eat and stuff). So it’s a good thing if donations can become easier.

But also, it’s next to impossible to challenge the giants with just those servers. So I think services like omg.lol and write.as, that offers a Mastodon instance as a part of a paid service, is nice as well. I also think Mozilla.social could’ve been a good thing if they gave a damn. And the client, Mammoth (which is freemium) running an instance, is also cool.

Now, let’s take Mastodon accounts as an example.⁶ For the reason mentioned above, I think there’s room for all of these types:

• Randoms just talking about their day and interests
• Small blogs and publications
• Journalists and official accounts for larger publications and newspapers
• Politicians and government entities
• People who are personalities on other platforms (like YouTube), who want a social media presence
• Heck, even brands and influencers

It’s perfectly fine in some instances to not allow self-promotion – and some might demand that it’s marked with a hashtag. Others might demand that ads for others (like sponsorships) are marked as well. (I’d say most should do this.) This would make it trivial for users to create their own ad blockers, by simply ignoring #ad.

For an example of useful “brand accounts”, have a look at the instance indieapps.space!

Now, I’m not saying I love the idea of more commercial activity on “my” part of the web. But categorically being against it kind of screams of NIMBY, in my opinion.

Oh, and if we want large accounts (which I think we should), we need good tools for them. Technology Connections has has several threads about the short comings of Mastodon in this regard.

My message:

If you’re finding yourself being a fan of open social media, but also be against growth and commercialisation, I have a few questions for you:

1. Why doesn’t everyone deserve to take part in the thing you think is good?
2. Do you think it’s OK for people to make a living doing things like making videos, selling art online, writing blogs, etc.? And if so, why should the people doing that, and those who follow them, be forced to stay on the ad-tech platforms?
3. How do you expect open social media to compete without resources? (And again, we all know what the alternative is if it can’t.)

Nah – my message is instead: Let’s work on healthy and secure growth, having the open social media be a flexible and private place to both sell and buy, and getting enough resources into the ecosystem to provide cake for everybody.