-
This is precisely correct.
“The difference from corporate social media comes down to incentive structures. Platforms designed around narcissism & parasocial relationships produce content optimized for engagement. A federated network w/ no central owner produces something closer to actual knowledge-sharing, because nobody profits from making it addictive.”
-
Journalists, stop with the “format wars” headlines for Bluesky vs. Mastodon! đ¤Śââď¸ This isn’t zero-sum; when one wins, both benefit. It’s also the wrong question entirely. Twitter was already broken before it became ‘X,’ remember? #OpenSocialWeb
-
Survival of the funniest.
“However, many scientists believe that humour is far more widespread amongst the animal kingdom than this…. other researchers have noted that dolphins appear to produce sounds of joy while they are play-fighting, and elephants trumpet in excitement when playing. Some parrots have been known to tease other animals for fun, for example by whistling at and confusing the family dog.
There’s even evidence that rats enjoy a good laugh. For the last decade or so, Jeffrey Burgdorf, research associate professor at Northwestern University in the US, has been tickling rats for a living. When the rats are tickled, they squeak joyfully in a high-pitched noise similar to a giggle.”
-
The $1.5 Billion Butterfly Effect: How eBayâs Acquisition of PayPal as a “Butterfly Effect”
I was having breakfast with a friend today, and we fell down a rabbit hole: How different would our countryâand the worldâbe today if eBay hadnât chosen to adopt, and eventually acquire, PayPal in 2002?
It sounds like a niche piece of Silicon Valley history, but when you look at the “PayPal Mafia” timeline, itâs arguably is hard to overstate what impact that had.
1. The Funding of the “PayPal Mafia”
When eBay bought PayPal for $1.5 billion, it didn’t just exit a startup; it liquid-fueled a group of the most ambitious (and controversial) minds in tech. Without that specific injection of capital and credibility at that specific moment, the “PayPal Mafia” wouldn’t have had the war chests to build their next empires.-
Elon Musk: Without his $180M payout, there is likely no SpaceX, and certainly no capital to save Tesla during the 2008 crunch. And later to fuel the X/Twitter takeover.
-
Peter Thiel: His payout funded Palantir and his early $500k investment in Facebook
2. The Political Butterfly Effect
This is where it gets truly wild. Without the specific brand of “Techno-Optimism” or “Effective Accelerationism” championed by Thiel, Sacks, and Musk, the financial and digital support systems for modern political movements: including the momentum behind the 2024 Trump campaignâmight have looked entirely different. David Sacksâ influence as a political kingmaker and the shift of Silicon Valley toward the right are direct descendants of the PayPal exit.History isn’t just made by “inevitable” trends; itâs made by specific liquidity events. A single board meeting at eBay in the early 2000s inadvertently decided so much more of our political, technological and cultural world. At the time it seemed like the most pedestrian choice in the world, one that they could have chosen a dozen other options for.
I wonder. what choices are being made today that will have a simliar effect 20 years from now.
-
-
This is a test of a new compose app I’m playing with for posting to my social accounts. #Ignore
-
**Proposal for Fediverse Remote Content Engagement** Updated April 14, 2026
Tim Chambers, @tchambers@indieweb.social Updated: April 2026 Enhancing User Experience for Remote Social Interactions in ActivityPub Applications I. Introduction: The Challenge of Federated Interactions Decentralized social networking platforms, operating on a federated model where users reside on independent servers (instances) yet can interact across the network, offer resilience and community autonomy. However, this architecture has historically presented user experience (UX) challenges, particularly for interactions initiated from one instance but targeting a user or content on another. Continue reading â
-
Merry Christmas everyone!
-
Cool, added this search tool to my micro.blog site, will find out best way to add it to top of the UX:
-
My 2026 Open Social Web Predictions
Predictions for 2026 include growth forecasts for various social media platforms, advancements in federated technologies, and anticipated shifts in how organizations and governments engage with decentralized networks. Continue reading â
-
Happy Solstice! Good on all of us for making half way out of the dark. (And yes, thatâs a Doctor Who reference) #solstice youtu.be/raDM5Hewe…
-
My 2025 Open Social Web Prediction Score Card
A year ago, I made a set of bold predictions about where the Open Social Web was headed. Now, at the end of 2025, itâs time for a sober, if occasionally amused, look at what I got right, what I got wrong, and where I was wildly optimistic. Iâm currently working on my 2026 predictions, but before moving forward, I wanted to grade 2025 honestly and in public. Here were my 2025 predictions: www. Continue reading â
-
Yes. Yes it is. #ABC #JimmyKimmel
-
This is the most impactful thing one can do to protest corporate caving to autocracy. Canceling Disney and Hulu subscriptions. I suggest you do the same. Now. And boost messaging like this to friends. Push back hard.
-
TikTokâs enshitification with its new right wing owners may accelerate as fast as Xâs did. Might be next window for the open social web. #tiktok
-
Case study that sometimes it takes an “extinction moment” to start doing something you should have been doing for over the last decade or more: organic, authentic digital outreach. #Democrats www.npr.org/2025/09/1…
-
This summarizes the situation better than anything else you will read. There, saved you a lot of time. #charliekirk youtube.com/shorts/tg…
-
Well played, Apple. #theStudio #Emmys
-
Pretty accurate progression so far. #Charliekirk
-
Just a note. #groyper
