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461 points GavinAnderegg | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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bsimpson ◴[] No.42151280[source]
Decentralization feels like it's driven more than idealism/zealotry than pragmatism. In theory, I understand the appeal of owning your data. In practice, systems churn. I haven't had a portfolio in years, because I used AppEngine to host mine; they forced everyone to migrate to Python 3 after I'd built it, and I never bothered to update it. Meanwhile, everything I uttered on Facebook in college still exists. (And plenty of precious content that ended up on other services, like Qik, no longer does.)

If "owning" my data means I need to spend time learning a new format and setting up a way to publish that format on a domain I own, and then maintain it into the infinite future, the odds I'm gong to bother are very low.

The Linux chat rooms are on Matrix because highly ideological people are active in Linux communities, but everyone else just uses Discord. And even Matrix has a webapp that makes it almost as easy as Discord.

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1. johnnyanmac ◴[] No.42153863[source]
> I understand the appeal of owning your data. In practice, systems churn.

But people still care about it and that minority can become expensive to fight off. We see this as we speak with games. The (IMO, frivilous) minorities got to a point last week where 2 Californians are trying to sue a 10 year old game for shutting down in 2023 (before this law they are suing under was made).

It'll probably take a few thousand to fight it off, so those two plantiffs are having the effect of maybe 100 gamers in terms of cost. For what I see as a frivilous lawsuit. Imagine one with teeth.