Why Mozilla is betting on a decentralized social networking future | TechCrunch
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Consumers are hungry for a new way of social networking, where trust and safety are paramount and power isn't centralized with a Big Tech CEO in charge...
  • xyguy@startrek.websiteEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’d love to see them push for Mastadon. They can serve as an entry point for a lot of people because for the layperson, the fediverse is an odd place that’s kind of hard to understand.

    If they can just be the, “hey join Firefox.social and you’re in the fediverse. Here’s our Fedifox app for your phone, bing bang boom.” I think it could go a long way to growing the total userbase.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    41·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Consumers are hungry for a new way of social networking, where trust and safety are paramount and power isn’t centralized with a Big Tech CEO in charge… or at least that’s what Mozilla believes.

    The mission-driven tech company behind the Firefox browser, Pocket reader and other apps is now investing its energy into the so-called “fediverse” — a collection of decentralized social networking applications, like Mastodon, that communicate with one another over the ActivityPub protocol.

    And, as a wholly owned subsidiary of a nonprofit, the company says it’s not motivated by generating earnings for shareholders or returning a VC investment, allowing it to progress with a collaborative approach where it takes in input from a lot of different voices.

    “I think that it’s a pretty poor track record by existing companies that are only model motivated by profit and just insane user growth, and are willing to tolerate and amplify really toxic content because it looks like engagement,” she says.

    However, the company is aiming to tackle some of the obstacles that have prevented users from joining and participating in the fediverse so far, including the technical hurdles around onboarding, finding people to follow and discovering interesting content to discuss.

    What Mozilla wants to accomplish, then, is to help reconfigure the Mastodon onboarding process so that when someone — including a publisher or creator — joins its instance (or the fediverse in general) they’re able to build their audience with more ease.

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