posted in Fediverse
We can do it again
Mastodon toot:
Daniel Lakeland @dlakelan@mastodon.sdf.org
Fediverse, the social media system for 40+ year old people who built the world wide web and regret it.
Oct 01, 2026, 11:32 PM
Replying to @naught101@lemmy.world
My take is that the fediverse is nice because it’s still in its pre-enshittification phase. Give it time.
Replying to @LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
Hopefully its design makes it resistant to enshittification.
Replying to @grue@lemmy.world
Depends… if enshittification just means corporate control and advertising, I have high hopes for the design. If enshittification also includes things like personal insults, echo chambers and gatekeeping, those ships have already sailed as expected.
Replying to @LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
“Enshittification” has a more specific meaning than just “things getting shitty.” It’s about a product or service being purposefully made worse in order for the company controlling it to extract more profit by means more underhanded and exploitative than just raising the price.
Forum toxicity (sans some algorithm or bot farm egging it on for some nefarious purpose) is categorically a different thing than enshittification.
The Fediverse can’t enshittify in its current state because it’s not controlled by a corporation. In order for it to happen, it would have to be overwhelmed by federating with Threads or something like that.
Replying to @grue@lemmy.world
Alright I understand the distinction now, although I don’t think either kind of degradation creates a worse user experience than the other. I wonder what term will be made up to describe the situation when corporations have spun up their own instances of lemmy etc. and promote them so they attract far more users. Maybe disillusionication?