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A reminder that Mastodon and the Fediverse do NOT use cryptocurrency, blockchains, NFTs, tokens, coins, mining, web3 or anything like that.

Masto and the Fedi run on traditional servers and use a sustainable network federation model somewhat similar to e-mail (that's why Fediverse addresses look similar to e-mail addresses).

Also a reminder there are no venture capital firms or other investors either. No one owns the network, each server is independent. Masto and Fedi server running costs are paid by their owners, sometimes with donations from users.

No one is getting rich from the Fediverse, it is all volunteers with some getting donations and a few getting modest grants from foundations. Please remember this when you interact with admins or developers.

(There might be some individual users who post about cryptocurrency/blockchain, but the infrastructure this place runs on doesn't use it at all.)

Tl:dr - Decentralisation does NOT mean cryptocurrency/blockchain

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in reply to FediTips has moved!

Some time ago I asked a question about the environmental impact of fediverse, including of course Mastodon, and although I did not get an answer on that moment, one of my main doubts was if the blockchain was used. This clarification reassures me.
in reply to Wisteria :vf:

Yeah, there's no blockchain or artificial scarcity or mining or anything like that here.

Fediverse (including Mastodon) is all traditional servers with owners who want to keep their electricity bills as low as possible, so they are incentivised to reduce energy use rather than expand it.

There will still be an impact from any kind of server, but on traditional servers it's not artificially high. No one is incentivised to waste energy on the Fediverse or Mastodon.

There's a project called @greenfediverse which is trying to encourage people to move to servers powered by renewable energy, that might be worth checking out too?
in reply to FediTips has moved!

I had no idea of its existence, I will check as soon as possible, thanks for the information! it helps me a lot :blobcomf:
in reply to FediTips has moved!

really wish people would understand that decentralisation doesn't need any blockchain bullshit, and infact decentralised systems like email, BitTorrent, and IRC (back when there was a single global network) came long before blockchains were even just a dream
in reply to FediTips has moved!

Keep this in mind:

"No one is getting rich from the Fediverse"
in reply to Sapere Aude

I'm not sure this is something to be proud of 🙁

It's great that one can access the fediverse in a non commercial way.

But it would be nice to have some businesses running servers for a profit too. There is nothing about the federation protocols that prohibit it.
in reply to LovesTha🥧

Sorry, I should have been more specific.

There's nothing wrong with a server asking its users for running costs. That's how indie web hosting companies work.

The important thing is that no one is ever forced to use a specific server. It should always be possible to change servers if you're unhappy.

Facebook, Twitter etc aren't making money from people choosing them, they're making money from people trapped on their networks with no alternatives. Many people see all their friends and family on centralised networks, and they feel they cannot leave without giving up their social lives.

This stranglehold over users' lives allows Facebook, Twitter etc to spy on their users, exploit their data, target advertising etc.

If a Fedi server behaved like FB or Twitter, its users would just move their account to other servers, and other servers would refuse to federate with bad servers.

Fedi is all about consent and the user staying in control, without being exploited.
in reply to FediTips has moved!

(continued)

Web3 is advertised by its fans as being an alternative to Facebook etc, but it too is built around making money. Many of the people behind web3 are investors, some of them are the same people who hold Facebook shares.

Blockchain is almost completely dominated by currency speculators, people who want to get rich simply by buying and selling tokens/coins/NFTs/cryptocurrency.

Web3 is innately about getting rich in some way. It is designed this way.

Fediverse doesn't have any of this, there is no web3, no blockchain, no tokens, no coins, no cryptocurrency, nothing.

Fediverse is just about letting people connect to each other using whichever server they prefer. There is no innate money-making structure behind it.

This is what I meant by saying people behind the Fediverse aren't getting rich. They aren't in this for the money, they are in this for the sake of creating a better online world.
in reply to FediTips has moved!

I'm guessing some will say you need money making for a network to be sustainable.

But email and the original world wide web were built by academics simply wanting to communicate with each other without any thought for money, and they have been very sustainable indeed. The Fediverse is in the same spirit and with a similar technical structure.

If email and the world wide web can survive and thrive, so can the Fediverse.

(There are businesses who sell email and web and Fedi hosting services, but you're paying them for their services rather than for anything innately in the network.)

This is why I support the Fediverse, because it's just how things should be. We know this model works for email and the web, it can work for social media as well.

If we can get enough people to join the Fedi, we can break the network effect that traps people on Facebook/Twitter/etc. There is just no need for "web3" at all, it only makes things worse.
in reply to Lerk :verified:

Ah yeah, the word "server" can cause confusion as it can mean different things.

By "server" I mean a traditional single instance rather than a specific piece of computer hardware. (One large instance might run on several computers, or several small instances might run on a single computer.)

The Fediverse is a traditional decentralised network of instances, like email is. Accounts and content are hosted on a specific instance. There is no blockchain at all.

Web3 brings blockchain into this, where content and accounts are no longer tied to specific instances. Web3 causes severe environmental, social and technical problems, which are detailed in things like "Line Goes Up" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g).
in reply to FediTips has moved!

TL;DR at the end makes no sense. How I know there is "Too Long; Didn't Read" at the end without reading the post? Please, note that I read from up to bottom. You may put "Summary" or "Point" at the end, but please put "TL;DR" at the beginning. Thanks!
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
Encrypted communication and cryptocurrencies are two completely separate things.

Encryption is good, cryptocurrency is bad.

(Unfortunately the word "crypto" is nowadays used to refer to both things, but it really shouldn't be.)
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
Fediverse servers don't copy the whole of the rest of the Fedi. They only copy posts and people that their own server interacts with, which will only ever be a minority of the Fedi. On small servers this will be a tiny minority of the Fedi.

And commercial social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc are duplicated in vast data centres to allow fast local loading, plus all the massive overheads for user tracking, advertising etc etc which don't exist on Fedi.

"cryptography (to make sure the post is actually yours), etc."

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Verification of a post happens by checking the origin server has that post by that user, like checking if a website exists at a particular address.

The Fedi has no blockchain or anything like that.
in reply to FediTips has moved!

There is cryptographic verification of posts as an optional part of the spec as an alternative to dereferencing the original copy.
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
There are already about 4000 servers on Mastodon alone, with millions of users.

When you follow someone, your server only starts noticing posts made by that account from that moment onwards, it doesn't backfill old posts.

Fetching someone's profile just fetches their name and profile image and cover image. It's not a large amount of data.

The only way a post appears on a server is if someone on that server followed that account before the post was made, or if someone they followed boosted that post.
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
"any interaction between two users gets recorded in friendship tracker,"

I don't think that's the case?

My understanding is the recommendations are based on how many people follow particular accounts on that server.

Mastodon and the Fedi tend to deliberately avoid algorithms.
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
I don't understand where you get this "hardly achievable" from.

You said "facebook claims to be carbon-neutral and 100% renewable."

If that was true (and FB's track record makes me doubt it), the only way it could be is by FB using renewable energy for data centres.

But the Fediverse can run on renewable energy data centres too. @greenfediverse is cataloguing these so that people can move their accounts to servers that run on renewables.

A federated network gives people the choice to actually move to greener providers.

It even allows people to run a server at home on their own renewable energy sources.
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
If you're on the Fediverse you can choose to use a greener instance.

If you're on Facebook you have no choice at all. FB may or may not claim to be green, but you're trapped by the network effect either way.

I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make?
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
(sigh)

You're complaining about misinformation, but then in the same post completely misrepresenting other people's views.

You're claiming this thread was about "Fediverse being good for the environment".

No one said that. Read the thread right from the start.

Here's a direct quote of what I said in my first reply:

"There will still be an impact from any kind of server, but on traditional servers it's not artificially high. No one is incentivised to waste energy on the Fediverse or Mastodon."

This is a thread about how the Fedi doesn't use blockchain or proof of work.

There is no incentive for anyone on Fedi to waste energy on artificial scarcity. People running a server are incentivised to use as little energy as possible, because they have to pay the electricity bill.

No one was saying it didn't have an impact, they were saying it had less of an impact than systems built around artificial scarcity.
in reply to FediTips has moved!

Here's the really long answer to this:

I agree that, like for like, centralised single instances are the most energy-efficient way to deliver content.

Unfortunately in the real world it is never like for like.

All popular social networks which run on single instances have eventually been bought out by (or turned into) major corporations whose only legal duty is making money for their shareholders.

If they have to choose between the environment and short term profits, they feel obligated to choose short term profits.

Even worse, centralised social networks make spying on users and political manipulation far easier. This tends to favour wealthy interests who claim global warming is a hoax, who want perpetual (unsustainable) growth etc etc etc.

In this situation, the least worst option environmentally seems to be something like the Fediverse, where we are freer from manipulation by megacorporations but still incentivised to run energy efficient servers.
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
Ah ok, sorry for my crossed wires!
Unknown parent

FediTips has moved!
Hey, I was writing this reply to your other recent post but it disappeared!

Hope it is okay to post as reply here instead:

Fair enough. It is a complex topic and difficult to disentangle issues. You might be right and in that case it would make social media options very difficult indeed.

I'm optimistic about decentralised scaling though, as email has scaled very well over the decades, and that has a social element through mailing discussion lists, attachments, relays etc. But we'll see.

It is good you bring this up, as it doesn't get discussed enough anyway, and it is important for developers to consider energy use regardless of which solution is "least worst".
in reply to FediTips has moved!

@FediTips Again please, do not only just mention mastodon as part of the fediverse... There is so much more but most ppl don't know because nobody tells them..... ;)
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

I do post about other platforms, I just did a post entirely about Friendica yesterday. (I had to take it down today due to a problem with the server I mentioned, though.)
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

It's not that simple.

I try to only mention servers which are relatively trusted and safe and reliable.

On Mastodon this is easy as there's an official list and a covenant they all sign up to, which covers safety and reliability (https://joinmastodon.org/covenant).

On other platforms, there's nothing like this. I have to go with whatever the general reputation of a server is. Most other platforms don't even do minimal screening of their server lists, they just list them all, which is dangerous.

This is a major barrier to recommending other platforms, because I don't know which servers to recommend for beginners. If they had some kind of similar "safe" list of servers, it would help a lot!
in reply to FediTips has moved!

@FediTips Uhm ....... a interestin take.. Reminds me of some sort of walled garden...

That's not what the fediverse is..

Why do you actually need to mention any specific server instead of referring to services?
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

I don't think it is a walled garden at all. The servers are all independent, no one is being forced to use them, and these servers federate with servers not on the list.

I'm just trying to check if a server is responsibly run before recommending it.

If I don't mention any servers where people can sign up, how are they supposed to use a platform?
in reply to FediTips has moved!

@FediTips Maybe, tell them how to find servers? There are enough directory-sites available. ;)
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

There are hundreds of Friendica servers. How are new people supposed to know which ones are reliable?
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

Mastodon has a list of recommended servers at https://joinmastodon.org/communities which have all signed up to a covenant at https://joinmastodon.org/covenant which promises responsible moderation and reliable service.

As far as I know, only Mastodon has done something like this.

If more platforms did this, it would be much easier to send new people to other platforms.

It would also encourage decentralisation as people would be more willing to sign up to a small server.
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

The lists you mention don't seem to be interested in user safety at all?

Those lists have no mention of moderation, no mention of reliability, no mention of backups.

In Fediverse.party's case, they say they are excluding servers with "long blocklists". Why? Surely blocklists are a sign of active moderation?
in reply to hackbyte (friendica)

I don't think we can assume that just from the length of a blocklist?

We would have to look at the reasons for each block. They may be justified?

Part of the problem is that some Fedi platforms are so easy and cheap to set up, trolls can create many different servers. Even one troll might cause multiple entries on a single blocklist.
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