This Is For Everyone

[NoelDeMartin]

@ploid

It seems to me that the problems with existing social media are more to do with human nature than the algorithms (although that is, undoubtedly, an issue). The technology amplifies the human tendency to focus on anything we find threatening, and that won’t change. Indeed, AI may even amplify the fear factor even more than the attention seeking clickbait we already have.

I don’t know, if I’ve learned anything by reading the book, it is that technology can really shape society. And the most surprising thing in the history of the Web is Tim’s relentless defense of its ideals (or at least that’s my impression reading the book, which I’m sure is biased to a certain extent, but still).

I used to say that “the Web was a miracle”, because we haven’t seen a technology as open and unrestricted as the Web go mainstream since its inception, and we may never see another one again. But now, I see it wasn’t a coincidence. If Tim hadn’t fought for this in the way he did, maybe we never would have had a Web. And to me, the real problem with most of today’s technology (or at least, the one that’s going more mainstream), is that the people in charge of those organizations have very different goals than their users.

But indeed, if the people managing those organizations had values that aim to benefit society instead of themselves… I’m pretty sure things wouldn’t be going the way they are. And maybe AI is the perfect example. It seems like most big players are in an arms race to see who can get the biggest market share and dominance, rather than being more useful to society. Not to mention all the theft, injustice, and waste of resources that is being overlooked to get there.

@ploid

I remain unconvinced, though, that Tim’s optimism is justified.

In that, I agree :(. I would love for Solid and similar initiatives to work out, but so far it’s not looking great. It seems like the Web really was a miracle.

@ploid

One final thought … I did set up my own Solid POD a few years ago and followed the project for a while, but I couldn’t find anything useful there. And that doesn’t seem to have changed since.

That depends on how you look at it.

If you expect Solid to replace all Big Tech and go mainstream, I agree that’s not happening anytime soon.

But I wouldn’t go as far as saying there isn’t anything useful. Solid is resilient in a way that’s very different from Big Tech. Given that it’s a protocol, it means that everything that’s built on top of Solid is likely to outlive many of its Big Tech alternatives. For example, I have built a couple of apps, and you can be sure that these are going to work 10 or even 30 years from now (as long as the Web is around, I suppose). Even if the Solid Protocol evolves (which honestly, is not doing much), you can still use previous versions of the protocol to migrate your data or whatever you want. Or use a different app, given that you have access to the raw data.

It’s a very different way of looking at our relationship with software. And only for that reason, even if it isn’t gaining much traction, I think that projects like Solid are still important. Though maybe just for geeks like me, and not for society at large .