Thread by Alek Tarkowski

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0/ In the past weeks, #Mastodon network grew by 50% (and counting). A growth level that would impress any investor. And a growth level that makes many of the network's older users weary. To grow or not to grow – this is the big question for the #Fediverse. A 🧵:
1/ (Now that it is again OK to mention on Twitter other social networks, like Mastodon)
www.theverge.com/2022/12/18/23515221/twitter-bans-links-instagram-mastodon-competitors
2/ New users are organically joining Mastodon, at a steady pace of 300k/week. Will the institutional backbone grow and adjust as well? I recently published an opinion on this in @techpolicypress: techpolicy.press/priorities-to-make-the-fediverse-sustainable/
3/ The #TwitterMigration is not significant in absolute numbers. It's just 1% of Twitter's user base.

But it's a rare example of collective user choice at the scale of millions, fuelled by ethical concerns, and not just consumer convenience. And this makes it significant.
4/Today, the #Fediverse is an experimental lab, a place to build #DigitalPublicSpace. Building on solid foundations: no centralized control, no adtech, no exploitation of user data.
5/ Yet, it faces two major limitations. One has to do with #sustainability. An #opensource approach to building and maintaining Mastodon has clear limits to growth.
6/ Second, more crucial, has to do with the lack of participatory governance. The network is ruled through code by a narrow group of maintainers: code developers and server admins. It's a network divided into coders and code-nots.
7/ As such, it's a good example of an exclusionary streak to open projects, described very well by @leonidobusch openfuture.eu/paradox-of-open-responses/how-openness-becomes-exclusionary/
8/ Mastodon old-timers like to give advice to #newbie users. We need to zoom out to the collective level and see the network for what it is now: a #NewbieNetwork. A network that needs to learn itself anew.
9/ @gerwitz@chaos.social asked me (on Mastodon) a good question:
why do we need to instrument the network if it works for users? There are no shareholders demanding growth here.
chaos.social/@gerwitz/109314644363254025
10/ My answer was: millions of people need access to healthy, just and sustainable communication tools. Hans replied that this means seeing growth in terms of "souls saved" instead of "eyeballs captured." He's right.
11/ Yet Fediverse is a case of #ParadoxofOpen – its approach is both a source of network resilience and a significant limit on further growth.
12/ the story of the developers who build different parts of the Fediverse is one of amazing commitment and frugality: #Mastodon has a budget of around € 100K/year.
13/ But this can also be seen, through a darker lens, as a case of open source's funding problem – for years, key code has been maintained by precarious coders, barely making a living – much in the #opensource spirit. yet.
stackoverflow.blog/2021/01/07/open-source-has-a-funding-problem
14/ But more importantly, we need to change the way key decisions are made. Until now 80% of code has been committed by one person who single-handedly governs it.
15/ And the typical #open response to this is: the code is #open, you can do whatever you want with it!

But that's a take that just reinforces inequalities between coders and code-nots.
16/ @Downes wrote in response to my text: "If he thinks social network growth is an imperative, and if he wants to govern a social network, let him build it.”
It's a take true to classic #opensource ethics. And I deeply disagree with it.
www.downes.ca/post/74603
17/ Since there is no realistic scenario where everyone learns to code (thus distributing the capacity to fully participate in the network), we need a pact between the coders and the code-nots: participatory governance.
18/ @ntnsndr and @amyadele offer a good take on this in @NoemaMag: www.noemamag.com/mastodon-isnt-just-a-replacement-for-twitter/
19/ We also need to think more in terms communities and relations, not just code and servers. @jeniT makes the point that "Openness is about relationships and building community"
openfuture.eu/paradox-of-open-responses/creative-communities/
20/ Being open and decentralized, #Fediverse offers great opportunity to do that. There are many examples to borrow from – paradoxically, the interesting ones often happen in #web3. It's worth paying more attention to @gitcoin @metagov_project or @RadxChange
21/To get the #Fediverse on a path to change, I propose three next steps: 1) launch participatory governance experiments; 2) secure support from public institutions; 3) build stronger social and institutional layers.
22/ This is based on a blueprint for commons-based institutions that @ZygmuntowskiJ and I created this year, the Data Commons Primer.
openfuture.eu/publication/data-commons-primer/
23/ Two months into the migration, the initial surge has passed, and most users have figured out how to join an instance or use content warning. This is the right moment to start working on the #NewbieNetwork itself.
24/ I am counting that in 2023 we'll see a collective, sustained process coalesce w/ help of people like @WeAreNew_Public @elipariser @rachelcoldicutt @1Br0wn @amyadele @ntnsndr @jeffjarvis @zittrain
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