When even Cory Doctrow starts to sound like an optimist I have to give myself a reality check as it usually means I’m heading off the deep end. But in this case it just rubs me the wrong way that he talks about Mastodon and Bluesky in the same breath – one is not like the other.
Doctorow lays out the technical challenges of ATProto and why it really isn’t really feasibly federated or decentralized, and why he supports Free Our Feeds. He’s pragmatic and is primarily concerned with stopping enshittification, not concerned with being married to ActivityPub.
Really? To me, most everything he says comes off as completely impractical. I appreciate that he came up with enshittification, and some of his thoughts are great, but most of it is pie-in-the-sky thinking that could only work in some hypothetical utopia,
I think he’s pragmatic in the “whatever tool gets the job done” sense, but not in the “this is the job we should be doing” sense — if that makes any sense :)
That makes perfect sense. Thanks for explaining it so well!
I specifically mean when it comes to supporting either Mastodon or Bluesky. I’ve only started reading his work the last few months after, well everything, so I’m not terribly familiar with his entire writings.
I’d agree with your point as I don’t really care for his political writings as I don’t really find them realistic. I had to roll my eyes at his post of how to cut the federal budget.
Doctorow has never been a practical thinker. That’s just not what he does.
and thats ok. some great work has been done making the impractical practical. the article was a good think piece. it did its job.