hessiejones

I like the term internet envirionmentalism -- what's good for me is good for the internet. But like climate change, unless it impacts the individual directly, few are likely to buy in. I met an environmental activist last week and she told me that people in Japan is a culture of cleanliness -- it's instilled in the child from a young age. And it perpetuates into society. For Singapore, that has translated into stricter laws. In North America, people have to care otherwise it's likely no real strong regulation will ever happen.

Agree it has to make money. Tech giants stifle innovation and competition by buying companies they see as threatening. We need a consortium. And we need a model that can't be easily penetrated by big tech. Money is a true motivator -- and doing the right thing doesn't fall on the same plane when people are enticed with this kind of incentive.

So what I'm hearing is that opportunism will always exist regardless of structure

I remember this in the early day of blogging -- we were always leveraging community to drive organic reach. I was told by a FB person once that we need to stop chasing organic reach -- it ain't happening. The monetization to the forced FB feed meant everyone had to pay. For bloggers this is how they make money. It's become a staple for the industry.

I like the idea of IPFS. I also came from Yahoo and the GeoCities and YahooClubs remained autonomous communities for the most part. Y!'s model was to integrate but not to fully take over the communities but let them reside where they were. That model changed over the years as monetization became a problem.

I've also tried Mastadon but their interface leaves something to be desired. The experience is not there yet.

I do agree on interoperability -- and while Zuckerberg is doing this with Whatsapp and Messenger, we should really take this across most messaging app.

I fear for increasing centralization ONLY because they have the resources and money to do this. This will not change unless we develop a consortium that has the numbers to make it work.

It's only Pollyanna if you do nothing about it. Decentralization is more than an idea. There are many technologies developing privacy as an integrated feature on their platform. There is enough of an appetite to support it more widely than it has been.

Thanks everyone for your comments. My name is Hessie Jones and I have written this article on Forbes. I will weigh in on these thoughtful comments as I go through them. Thank you again!

Hi everyone, this is Hessie Jones. I wrote the piece on Forbes. I'll go through your comments today! Love that this is sparking discussion. Cheers!