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Multi-service tech communes on the Fediverse (lemmy.eco.br)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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Hi! I'm looking to collate/list community-funded Fediverse ISPs with multiple services. Some aggregate of servers that offer multiple services, not necessarily just Fediverse related, but at least one Fediverse service.

As examples, I can list:

I know there's one out there that also provides email (can't recall which), which is interesting as most people wouldn't dare.

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[–] 1 point 1 month ago (20 children)

Two things:

  1. Something something "Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for everything else that has been tried".

  2. Most if not all revolutions in human history only occurred when the "power-adjacent" class sided with the ruled populace and actively fought the rulers. For us (the comfortable middle class) to shrug and "Not play the Game" is quite lame.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (18 children)

    No, the best economic system is still communism, such as it was practiced in the Commune de Paris. Of course a quote from the openly racist and imperialist Winston Churchill can only be used to excuse capitalism.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (8 children)

    practiced in the Commune de Paris

    The one who couldn't even afford the upkeep of its armed forces?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (7 children)

    Who exactly is surprised that an independent collective in the middle of a capital city surrounded by armies of every country allying themselves because independence is worse than their decades-old feud cannot sustain an army and is thus crushed, violently executed and has their history erased by building a cutesy church on top of it

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacr%C3%A9-C%C5%93ur,_Paris

    "They couldn't feed their army" is an interesting critique for an egalitarian project

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (6 children)

    We are talking about economic systems. If the system is not able to keep even the most basic of roles of organized society (defense), it has failed.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    defense is not the most basic role of society, what kind of distorted view is that. Defense for everyone is already a specific point of view at odds with the whole concept of what the Commune is about. There's little need to talk about an economic system if the economic science itself doesn't account for what is the goal here (namely, self-organization doesn't revolve around a market)

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    defense is not the most basic role of society

    Not the basic role, but it is one of the most basic ones.

    point of view at odds with the whole concept of what the Commune is about

    You are projecting. You wish that people could live in peace and harmony and that followed the "concept" of the Commune. I am just pointing out that - as noble and good their ideals were - the Commune catastrophically failed when it was put into practice and had to face the reality of the world.

    If the economic science itself doesn’t account for what is the goal here.

    It shows a lot of hubris to talk about "goals" for society at large. It can work for a small group of people with a shared view and unchallenged leadership (like a small corporation or a family clan), but try living like that in anything larger than a small village and you will quickly see that the system is not sustainable. The Commune of Paris is only one of many examples.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    the Commune catastrophically failed

    The Commune was slaughtered by an international alliance of interests aligned with capitalistic and aristocratic interests. We don't know whether it would have worked or not, but it has brought enough progress in its short lifetime to justify it as better than the rest: free school for everyone, everyone (man, woman, foreigner) can vote and be elected, work is limited in time, etc...

    The "reality of the world" doesn't exist. You make it sound like it's fate, it's destiny, but it's not: humans actively decided to fill the streets of Paris with the blood of Communards, humans actively executed the orders, spread this.

    try living like that in anything larger than a small village and you will quickly see that the system is not sustainable.

    Then maybe we shouldn't try to have large-spanning entities. Those are only possible with a highly hierarchical system which is exactly the source of the problem. Better to have a thousand Communes than one big State. Just like internet services. Yes, one big central monopolistic servic can be run but no one here will ever argue it is better or inevitable or "just how the real world works", because it's not.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    but it has brought enough progress

    No, it didn't. It's very easy to see progress in the short term if you are sacrificing the long-term. The "free school for everyone" was not really free, it was sustained by the Commune taking resources from outside, but sooner or later they would run out of Other People's Money.

    Then maybe we shouldn’t try to have large-spanning entities.

    Yes, agreed. This is one of the reasons that I don't like to see the Fediverse as a bunch of "platforms" and would prefer to have it working as a proper decentralized web.

    Just like internet services.

    Internet services only work because everyone speaks the same language/protocols, which is only achievable with a large centralized authority, or with a network where peers do no trust each other (blockchain-style).

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    the Commune taking resources from outside

    Resources they themselves were producing ? How is that other people's resources ? If you're talking about land/factories, it's the same thing: how does it not belong to those who build and work it ?

    Internet services only work because everyone speaks the same language/protocols, which is only achievable with a large centralized authority, or with a network where peers do no trust each other (blockchain-style).

    I see we are at odds at appreciating what people can do. There is no need for an authority to enforce anything: people do talk with each other. People can build trust in each other without an authority breathing down their neck, and without assuming everyone's against each other. Working with each other, for each other, works.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    Resources they themselves were producing ?

    Not enough to sustain itself. This is what I meant in the beginning with "not able to afford its own army". They were clearly unable to produce enough total wealth to share and distribute among the people.

    Working with each other, for each other, works.

    Only if you are willing to accept medieval-age levels of economic output, and only for small scale populations who are completely isolated who have somewhat equal access to available resources.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (8 children)

    I think something like a (socialist) cooperative is a particularly good fit for internet services.

    They'd be be (co-)owned and managed by the users themselves. Plus internet servers are kinda cheap, I can easily afford to pay for one even all by myself. I just need people to talk to. And we need to collaborate on the content, moderation and software that powers it.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    Absolutely. It's hard to build stuff like that because we are so not used to it, but that's where we need to go.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

    Well, the whole internet started as a cooperative of research institutes. It's baked into the design, infrastructure, all early protocols are laid out like that. And even well after that, we got lots of independent discussion boards, blogs, different communities here and there. Main point being, people put in a lot of effort to make up their own nice corners.

    I think issue isn't that we weren't used to it. That was kind of what everything was about starting with the 70s, and central to it for at least the next 30 years. It's more that we actively forgot! Or better, were made to forget.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    No, it wasn't cooperative, it was libertarian from the start. Every man for themselves, do what you want, cooperate how you want, exploit how you want. The internet has never been a cooperative endeavor and the web hasn't changed it. Some of the stuff was, but it was an exception: wikipedia, osm, etc...

    "Cooperative" here isn't just "be nice to each other", it's "work for each other" and the ethos of the internet is definitely not that.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

    I strongly disagree. If you look at protocols like SMTP or Usenet, or how packets are being forwarded or names assigned, that all heavily relies on cooperation. I mean that's the single reason why we added all the stuff on top over the years. Because the original idea was, it's a network of cooperating entities. And they didn't really factor in exploitation and ulterior motives. And all the selfishness of the companies. We would have had far less issues if this wasn't how it was laid out.

    And all the structure emerged from groups of people using and shaping it. It used to be a lot more difficult. You'd be your group and want to interconnect to another group of people. The main point about a network is the interconnections. And back then you couldn't just plug a cable into the wall yourself and be done with it. That was people paying some excavators and a location in the next exchange. Making peering agreements with other entites and it wasn't as much about profit as it is today. Or they set up phone lines and the associated infrastructure. They stored and forwarded messages for other people, routed their data, set up exchanges and public boards. All working both for other people and for their own benefit.

    Also, there wasn't any superior entity who told them what to do. They themselves decided what protocols to agree upon, how to do it etc. We got very interesting stories on what they did with problematic central parts like DNS after the internet got too big and it couldn't be one university doing all the work for the entire country anymore, as it used to be in my country in the early days.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    I see your point and I agree with you, the very beginning was cooperative. But that cooperation happened only between technical users who had the proper knowledge to be part of it. The mindset wasn't one where everyone was welcome the way they are, but everyone was welcome if they could get up to speed with the technique. I think that is the core problem I have with the way "cooperation" was organized at the time. But you're right, it wasn't as adversarial as I had in mind.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    Well... I'd say it's mostly like that. For example a socialist agricultural cooperative will be made up of farmers. A writers guild won't necessarily welcome factory workers. They're groups to pool resource but they share a specific common goal. In contrast to for example a central communist government which manages all the domains and all people.

    But we have user groups as well. It somewhat all mixes but I'd say something like a Linux user group, the Ubuntuusers wiki or a repair cafe counts. And we definitely also welcome all kinds of people on the Fediverse. And we even try to accommodate them with whatever balance we managed to strike. Sometimes it ain't easy...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    This is where I disagree 😅 who is welcome in the community really is the decision of the community. The vision that only the good ones can get in is stil the adversarial position I really wish we would all fight. A writers' guild is useful for fighting against the existing domination, but ultimately what we want is for everyone to be able to write when/what/how they want, while also being able to work at the factory, plow the fields, take care of children and elderly, etc... that is a socialist cooperative.

    What we can do now towards this goal: have cooperatives of people who want to "be on the internet", composed of tech and non-tech people, all making decisions. We're trying to do something like that with deuxfleurs, it's hard, but I'm sure it's the right way !

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I mean that's kind of what we do. Guilds and associations will put in quite some effort to empower young talent. The Linux community takes great pride in helping average people with their computer woes. We also take pride in welcoming all contributions no matter who you are, if you're 12yo school kid or 60 and a woman... We've set up a lot of projects in a way people without technical expertise can use it, even contribute with i.e. translation, documentation, ideas... Sometimes there's issues with egalitarianism. But most people think it's some kind of priority to get it right.

    I think main issue is, why do you need to pool crops on an industrial scale if you don't have access to land and a tractor? What's the point in going to the writers guild meetings if you never write? I mean -of course- once you do write (maybe as a hobby, but have some idea of what it's about, or something to contribute?), or aspire to become a writer, you should be allowed to get in...

    I think it's mainly about focus. Different people need different things. Of course we could make an agricultuiral collective about empowering women to write... But I don't think it works out in practice. You kinda sometimes need to focus. Even if there's other noble things to do. That doesn't really take away from anything, I think it's more nature of reality, how people can't do everything all at once, all in the same place, and there's a bazillion conflicting interests within the group.

    (Plus, I found it's quite boring if I'm sitting in a meeting with the wrong group of people. I don't get most of the stuff they're talking about. And I'm afraid i'll keep them from getting stuff done if I ask a million beginner questions. Also I'm not really invested in the topic so... Idk. I just don't think it's necessarily a good fit. I'm definitely against gatekeeping and secret meetings, though... )

    And regarding the internet, this is how the internet is supposed to work. Everyone can send in RFCs! And people did. You don't have to be an admin for that, or prove some merit... The internet is specifically set up to factor in some kind of level playing field for new ideas and participation by random people.

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