Scott M. Stolz

2025-05-16 13:59:10

scott@loves.tech

Scott M. Stolz wrote the following post Fri, 16 May 2025 11:53:08 -0500

I remember when Google Ads limited websites to three ads per page. That was tolerable for most users, and did not distract from the content. But then they made a huge change, and their default mode (which they wanted you to use) would automatically place dozens of ads or more throughout your content. And if your website had infinite scroll, there were infinite ads.

This change, plus the realization that Google was tracking you and building a profile, lead to the the popularity of ad blockers.

The popularity of ad blockers reduced revenue to websites, including news outlets. Content websites started putting up paywalls and selling premium content instead of giving it away for free.

Google is basically killing the very thing that makes them money and it is affecting the entire internet. A perfect example of greed killing the golden goose.

2025-05-16 14:12:26

phani00 (hubzilla)

phani002242@hub.phanisvara.com

@Scott M. Stolz in one word: enshitification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Happy Birthday to Mike Macgirvin and Hubzilla, Streams, Friendica, and Forte!

2025-05-14 13:23:34

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

Mike Macgirvin 🖥️ wrote the following post Tue, 13 May 2025 14:52:39 -0500

Happy 15th birthday to the oldest still-living community software effort in the fediverse forest. It has been battered around over the years but the tree still stands and is currently thriving.

And Happy Birthday (69 - wahoo!) to the hippy/musician/farmer/technologist that brought all these things to the fediverse -- whether they wanted them or not:

Federated groups (public and private)
Circles/aspects
Cross-domain single sign-on
Nomadic identity
Decentralised permissions framework which can emulate any existing federated communications model from Twitter to Facebook to blogging to email. And new ones that nobody has thought of yet.
Comment controls
Quoted posts
Multicode (HTML+bbcode+Markdown)
Federated event management with participation
integrated WebDAV
Conversation containers
Directory services (centralised, decentralised, and distributed)
A large collection of contributed plugins and addons and themes (and a smaller collection of "widgets").
Shopping/ecommerce (community contribution)
Can technically federate with nearly any messaging or social protocol or project.
No artificial limits (post lengths, poll responses, attached images, etc)
And much more...

Notable feature branches:

Friendica
Hubzilla
(the streams repository) - 15th anniversary edition released today (v25.5.14)
Forte - 15th anniversary edition released today (v25.5.14)
Mistpark
Friendika
Redmatrix
Osada
Zap
Roadhouse
OpenWebAuth

It's been a wild ride and technically I'm retired -- but if you think that this "alternative fediverse" is going away any time soon, you must be new here.

2025-05-08 02:50:08

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

There are two primary ways to acquire wealth:

1. Provide value to others, and they compensate you for the value you provide.
2. Take wealth from others, directly or indirectly.

The first makes the world a better place, since value is created and exchanged, and people benefit from that exchange. The second causes suffering and is unjust, and is basically glorified theft, often driven by the corrupting forces of desperation or greed.

2025-05-08 03:01:21

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The greedy take wealth from others in a variety of ways, ranging from overcharging customers to underpaying employees to unfair contracts, often using unfair trade practices, creating monopolies, killing competition, and more. And this is before we get to those people who are willing to commit outright fraud or use force to get what they want. This is toxic corrupting behavior and destroys the economy and people's lives. This is not how things are supposed to be run, and it is not sustainable either. Short term gains, and long term damage.

2025-05-08 11:40:40

FenTiger

fentiger@zotum.net

Indeed. I've met far too many people who only believe in one or the other of these two ways. The world would be a better place if more people realised that they both exist.

2025-05-08 11:57:50

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The greedy want to consolidate power and transfer wealth to themselves at the expense of others. The desperate take things from others because they feel they have no other choice or are somehow justified in stealing. Greed and desperation just lead to suffering, and eventual violence.

But there is a way to counteract these toxic behaviors, and that is to decentralized power and to empower everyone to grow economically. Everyone. Create a fair playing field and give people the tools they need to grow and succeed. It is not an easy route to take, and it does not always yield instant results, but it is the only sustainable way to maintain a healthy and happy society.

2025-05-01 13:59:51

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

Necessity is the mother of all invention. Laziness is its father.

show all 10 comments

2025-05-01 14:02:03

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

If you want something to be more efficient, give it to a lazy person, because only a lazy person will take 10 hours to figure out how to make a 2 hour job into a 1 hour job.

2025-05-02 00:17:55

Ema エマ

ema@utasansh.in

caring (which lets us discover necessity) is a task to be shared by all genders. And all genders have the right to be lazy.
I know you are sharing my thoughts. still felt the necessity to mention them, because the words father and mother could make one think of the opposite (the traditional gender roles in many cultures).

2025-05-02 13:31:51

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Ema エマ This must be a case where the joke is not understood in another language or culture.

The phrase "necessity is the mother of all inventions" is an often repeated colloquialism, and the "laziness is its father" is the joke (or punch line) added to that common saying.

The Joke Formula: repeat a common phrase and add something at the end that people are not expecting.

The gender roles have nothing to do with the colloquialism. In fact, the colloquialism could have easily been "necessity is the father of all inventions" instead.

Of course, if the colloquialism was "father" instead of "mother" then some people would complain that women can make inventions too, so it probably a good thing that the original colloquialism is "necessity is the mother of all inventions."

This colloquialism and joke has nothing to do with gender roles. Swap genders as much as you like. Make both of them female, make both of them male, make both of them non-binary. Has nothing to do with the colloquialism and the joke.

The truth is, people can be whatever they want, regardless of gender. They are not limited by traditional gender roles of whatever culture they are surrounded by or part of.

2025-05-02 15:24:13

Ema エマ

ema@utasansh.in

thanks @Scott M. Stolz.
Indeed I’m not so familiar with your culture. learned some things about it.

2025-05-02 16:09:42

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I would guess that "mother" was used as it implies "giving birth to invention".

2025-05-02 17:13:19

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Marshall Sutherland True. But it also takes two to tango, as they say. :winking_face:

2025-05-03 15:17:29

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Marshall Sutherland

I would guess that "mother" was used as it implies "giving birth to invention".

That is my guess too.

2025-05-04 11:47:30

Ema エマ

ema@utasansh.in

Well, I live in a hierarchy-less society. I have no boss.
I never use the words necessity or to be necessary. Instead, I use need(s), to need and to be needed by.
I studied 5 years at the Federal Institutes of Technology Lausanne and Zurich, and later I worked 10 years in city planning, where I wrote reports and talked with citizens and politicians. One might think, in such circumstances I would have used the words necessity or to be necessary. I never did.

It's easy:

The world needs peace and a massive reduction in burning fossile carbon. The forest needs a buffer to the housings. The citizens of Basel need a quiet neighbourhood and recreation areas. We, the workers in our city planning company, need to generate an income to pay ourselves a salary to live.

If one cannot replace the words necessity or to be necessary by need(s) or to need / to be needed by in what they are about to say, then I advice them to change their live. If they insist on keeping using those words, I start thinking that they are dishonest, that they are hiding their true intentions.

The words need(s) or to need / to be needed by imply that there is a needer. That the needer is known, named, mentioned, talked about.

To know the needer, you need to care.

It might be that one could replace the words above by to want / to be wanted by. That's also fine, because that's honest and that names the wanting subject, in contrast to necessity / to be necessary.

2025-05-06 02:50:04

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Ema エマ Interesting. So needed and necessary are two different things.

For example, we'd say something like "it was necessary to perform surgery to save his life."

The surgery wasn't necessary because we cared. The surgery was necessary because of health reasons. The surgeon may have performed surgery because they cared, but surgery was still necessary whether someone cared or not.

The word necessary is not related to hierarchy. It means "if this is not done, there will be consequences."

If you don't eat, you'll starve, therefore eating food is a necessity. If you don't have heat in winter, you'll freeze, so therefore heat in winter is necessary for survival.

I think we use the term necessary differently than you do.

2025-05-06 03:52:45

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Ema エマ I'm wondering if the definitions and connotations are different in our countries.

Necessary means there will be consequences, most likely severe consequences, if something is not done. It was necessary to change lanes to avoid the pedestrian. It was necessary to evacuate because of the storm.

Need is usually associated a person or group of people. He needs help. She needs the keys to the car. They need this change in policy for (whatever) reason. So if you say you need something, there is usually someone who needs it.

So if the boss needed something, it's because he wants you to do something. But if it is necessary, then it's probably something that potentially has consequences if not done, like following safety procedures. So both words can be used but with different meanings or connotations.

That is the most common usage of those words in my culture. But many people use these words interchangeably, as if they mean the same thing.

2025-05-01 11:46:28

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The paradox of human behavior:

1. People are all unique and have their own beliefs, values, and preferences that frequently differ from the group they belong to.

2. People disregard #1 and tend to treat other people based on stereotypes and assumptions related to the group they belong to.

show all 6 comments

2025-05-01 12:33:41

FenTiger

fentiger@zotum.net

People who I agree with are all unique and have their own beliefs, values etc.

People who I disagree with are all the same, and are uniformly evil.

2025-05-01 12:52:44

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

I think that is the determining factor for some people, unfortunately. But you also see this with positive stereotypes too.

2025-05-01 16:35:58

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Imagine the chaos if people knew what other people really thought about everything. All those people you think agree with you about everything? Nah, probably not! I guess everyone is evil but you!

2025-05-06 09:28:46

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

Stereotypes and assumptions: we actually know why this happens. It has to do with how we learn.

Our mind groups similar things together so that we don't have to relearn new things over and over. It is how we can recognize what an automobile is, despite the fact that they all look different. So we create a label for it, and, rightly or wrongly, assume that this new automobile will have similar features as an automobile we encountered in the past. If we did not have that ability, we would have to literally relearn what a automobile was every time we encountered one. Imagine if we had to do that with bears in the wild. By the time you relearned what a bear was the next time you saw one, you'd be eaten. (This is also why we are naturally wary of new things. If you never saw a bear before, it is not a good idea to run up to it and give it a hug.)

But when you apply this to human beings, who are each unique, this becomes an issue, because people assume things about others based on what group they are in, or what label was applied to them. Nobody likes to be mislabeled or misunderstood. And people are wary of outsiders (i.e. people they don't know yet). That itself is unfortunate, but it gets worse when people treat each other differently based on those inaccurate and unfair assumptions. Racial profiling and discrimination based on skin color would be an examples of this. And the worst is when someone won't look past their labels and assumptions, and refuses to see the unique individual in front of them. This is where racism, racialism, discrimination, bigotry, and injustice completely take over.

The only way to deal with this problem effectively is to consciously understand that people are unique, and to treat all people fairly, regardless of what your first assumptions might be. Get to know the human being in front of you. If they show you or tell you about their culture, principles, perspectives, and values, then accept that as part of who they are personally, not as a label applied to them externally by someone else.

Luckily our brains are smart enough to understand that even though things might fall under the same category, they may not all be the same. That means that people can taught not to think in a racist or bigoted way, despite our tendency to label and group similar things together.

2025-05-06 10:27:25

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Immediately identifying friend vs foe is a survival skill in a few dangerous environments, but anti-social in most.

2025-05-06 13:30:42

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

True. Being wary of strangers is normal and expected behavior. The problem comes when people make assumptions and rely on stereotypes despite evidence to the contrary. For example, the statement "all x are y" is patently false when applied to any significantly sized groupings of people.

Also, people often use inaccurate indicators, such as skin color. For example, there are rich, middle class, and poor black people, and each of those are different. And then you have UK blacks, southern blacks, urban blacks, Hispanic blacks, Jamaicans, Africans, West Indians, etc. They are not the same either. Change the skin color to white. Same thing. The color of a person's skin tells you very little about them. It is more accurate to look at things like culture, values, creed, upbringing, etc. to understand the person you are dealing with.

Replying on stereotypes is not only unfair, but it also gives people a warped and inaccurate view of the world. They will mistakenly think an enemy is a friend because they have the correct skin color, and mistakenly think a potential friend is a foe since they have the wrong skin color.

People should always be careful and protect themselves from unknown threats, regardless of who the new people are. But the ultimate protection is actually getting to know the people who are you dealing with, going beyond the stereotypes and assumptions.

2025-04-30 16:09:15

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The biggest problem with variety packs is that there is always one flavor that you don't like. #food

show all 5 comments

2025-05-01 11:04:30

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

I added a hashtag to the original post so that it is clear.

2025-05-01 11:15:55

Bill Statler

billstatler@forum.statler.ws

It does seem to be a general rule of the universe, though. :-)

2025-05-01 11:40:18

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

In any grouping of people of a significant size, there will always be people you like and people you don't, for a variety of reasons. In other words, people within groups, cultures, nations, regions, organizations, fediverse servers, etc. are not all the same. Yet people seem to latch onto stereotypes about entire groups, and try to apply them to the diverse set of individuals within that group.

It is the paradox of human behavior: people are all different and have their own beliefs, values, and preferences, yet people tend to treat other people based on stereotypes and assumptions.

2025-04-25 19:23:28

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

Mike Macgirvin 🖥️ wrote the following post Fri, 25 Apr 2025 18:28:12 -0500

15 year anniversary of the Mistpark product family on May 14th (Mistpark, Friendika, Friendica, RedMatrix, Hubzilla, Zap, Roadhouse, Osada, the streams repository, Forte, etc.). Celebrations will be held in the fediverse, globally across all timezones.

Cheers.

A Network of Networks

2025-04-25 16:15:12

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

In my opinion, the best thing for the social web is creating a network of networks via bridging and multi-protocol platforms. It spurs innovation since you have competition and different ideas from different teams. Good ideas will spread, and less than ideal ideas will dwindle in use. Protocols and platforms can implement what is important to them. And people can choose their social experience.

ActivityPub is not going to give up its goal of decentralization down to the level of server or even user. AT Protocol is not going to give up its goal of a consistent user experience. Nomad/Zot is not going to give up its goal of nomadic identity combined with data portability & synchronization. OpenWebAuth is not going to give up federated single sign on. Secure Scuttlebutt is not going to give up its ability to transfer messages offline. Nostr is not going to give up on micropayments.

But, despite that, there are common features such as posts and replies and images and videos. Those could all be transferred between protocols and platforms without any issues. Creating bridges would be a good alternative to trying to get everyone to agree on one protocol.

show all 8 comments

2025-04-25 16:24:08

Hamiller Hubzilla

hamiller@hub.hubzilla.hu

Nostr is not going to give up on micropayments.

What I find even more significant about Nostr is that a user's identity is defined by their key pair. This allows them to connect to any Nostr app or web frontend and they are representations of this identity.

2025-04-25 16:27:04

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Hamiller Hubzilla

What I find even more significant about Nostr is that a user's identity is defined by their key pair. This allows them to connect to any Nostr app or web frontend and they are representations of this identity.

Nomad/Zot does the same thing, but hides this from the user.

2025-04-25 16:47:30

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

Good ideas will spread, and less than ideal ideas will dwindle in use.

That's pretty much the exact opposite of my experience after 40+ years of following the evolution of the computer business. :)

Otherwise I agree with you. I don't see any reason why there should not be room for more than one protocol. As long as the protocols are open, and properly spec'ed, those who want can bridge them.

2025-04-25 16:57:43

sk@utsukta.org

@Harald Eilertsen

That's pretty much the exact opposite of my experience after 40+ years of following the evolution of the computer business. :)

Humans aren't as rational as we expect them to be.

2025-04-25 17:13:21

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen It is probably more accurate to say that better marketed or promoted ideas spread, not necessarily the better ones. I was trying not to say the M word, since some people can get a bit touchy about it. But, yes, the reality is that better marketing outperforms better ideas, most of the time.

But, when you have competition and decentralization, better ideas have a chance of being adopted because anyone with the tools and skills can come in and build what they want. With a spirit of collaboration, good ideas are more likely to spread. We are already seeing this with nomadic identity being ported over to ActivityPub via Mitra and (streams). Whether it will be widely adopted is anyone's guess, but at least it was not killed outright by some centralized entity.

2025-04-26 02:03:01

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz Wasn't trying to make a big issue out of it, just found it a bit amusing. :)

The important takeaway from your post, at least to me, is that we don't have to limit ourselves to what already exists and is popular. And that as long as protocols stay open, there's really no limits.

2025-04-27 00:13:04

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Harald Eilertsen It is a good distinction to make though.

That is why we need a good website, good documentation, and be active in the community and events. "Build it and they will come" may work in that movie, but it certainly does not work in the real world. People can't use what they don't know exists.

2025-04-27 01:03:18

Harald Eilertsen

harald@hub.volse.no

@Scott M. Stolz I agree completely.

2025-04-25 05:57:17

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

It seems like a lot of people have forgotten the lessons taught in Star Wars. No matter how good your intentions are, going over to the dark side will just corrupt you and taint any cause you support.

show all 9 comments

2025-04-25 07:01:37

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

If only people could agree on what counts as the dark side.

2025-04-25 13:17:24

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Marshall Sutherland

If only people could agree on what counts as the dark side.

I think it is one of those things where most people can see it in others, but rarely see it in themselves.

They can point out when their enemies have crossed into the dark side, but then justify their own bad behavior as justice, or as pay back, or that they "deserve it" somehow.

It is a blind spot many people have. They cannot see how they are the same as the people they hate; the opposite side of the same coin.

2025-04-25 16:38:39

FenTiger

fentiger@zotum.net

@Scott M. Stolz "But it's different when we do it!"

"Different how?"

"You know what I mean!"

I wonder if some of the disagreement over quote posts may have been rooted in this; we should be able to quote post them, but we don't want them quote posting us...

2025-04-25 17:06:15

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@FenTiger Humans are weird in the sense that we can hold double standards.

And we often give ourselves a personal exemption from the rules.

It seems to be human nature since it is so widespread.

2025-04-25 17:31:46

Frank Casa

frank@frank.casa

@FenTiger

I wonder if some of the disagreement over quote posts may have been rooted in this; we should be able to quote post them, but we don't want them quote posting us...

There are some people who don't want anyone to be quoted, but I think at least some of the people are avoiding accountability. They say whatever they want, and if there is a backlash, they delete their post as if nothing happened. They don't want to be quoted since they don't want to be held accountable for their own words and actions.

But, on the flip side, you do have a problem with dogpiling and personal attacks. So there are valid reasons why some people don't want to be quoted, especially if it is something political that may not be popular. After all, just because something is popular, that does not make it right. Whether you are right or not does not affect whether you get attacked or not, in many cases.

2025-04-26 00:10:53

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@BauerUlli I can answer that. A quote post (or what we call a share) is someone else's post with your comments. But quoting someone with blockquotes also counts as quoting. Hubzilla and forum software like NodeBB have quoting built in and it is culturally accepted, whereas Mastodon and some other platforms don't even allow their users to use blockquotes, much less quoting someone's entire post. Mastodon is adding quote posts, but there is some controversy around it, since not everyone on Mastodon wants it.

2025-04-26 09:24:04

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

It all sounds rather silly since I can literally use copy and paste to say:

Jupiter says "As for quotes, these people don't even now that quotes are possible in social media."

2025-04-26 13:28:48

Bill Statler

billstatler@forum.statler.ws

Take a look at the feed of popular posts on any large Mastodon instance, and see how many of them are a screenshot of somebody else's post.

2025-04-27 09:16:05

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Jupiter Rowland That is a factor, but even if we had a native mobile app, we would still have more feature, just like the Facebook app has more features than the Twitter/X and Mastodon apps. Part of it is because Mastodon is modelled after Twitter, and Twitter never was feature-rich.

2025-04-25 05:42:49

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

The only way to effectively deal with conflicting interests and conflicts between diverse groups of people and diverse individuals is to have a set of rules that apply to everyone (on the server, at the event, part of the organization, etc.), regardless of what group or tribe they belong to.

Some examples: No harassment. Period. No death threats. Period. No offensive name calling. Period. No trolling. Period.

If you give people from your group or tribe a free pass to harass outsiders, then it just degrades to "we can harass you, but you can't harass us" which is unfair and toxic. It is also counterproductive, since it stirs up more conflict and causes resentment between groups and individuals. If you want to make things worse, only enforce the rules in one direction. This is where some of the "we don't feel welcome on the fediverse" comes from: rules being enforced only in one direction.

It does not matter if you are white, black, brown, LGB, trans, QIA+, purple, polka dotted, etc. People should not be harassing each other, and ideally platforms should prohibit harassment from everyone. That would create a safe space for everyone, including blacks, trans, LGB, etc. because the people creating toxic posts are banned or blocked. And people, especially minorities, are more likely to speak freely if they are not going to be harassed.

2025-04-25 13:46:07

Scott M. Stolz

scott@loves.tech

@Ulrich (Hubzilla)

I think that's one of the great attractions of social media. You don't have to be respectful. And so social media shows the dark side of people. People ‘beat up’ people who don't belong to their ‘clan’. Yes, rules are necessary, but they're boring.

I think it certainly attracts a certain crowd, but I have been in plenty of online communities where we respect each other and behave. This includes being able to debate controversial issues without resorting to name calling and threats. So I know that respectful online communities can exist and thrive.

I also acknowledge that different communities will have different cultures and different rules. And I think that people should have free speech (not including illegal content, obviously). That is what makes the fediverse, especially Hubzilla, so powerful. You can move to a server with the rules of your liking, or even run your own fediverse server with your own rules. For the ultimate level of free speech, you run your own server.

But on the server and community level, there are community rules. If you want an environment that attracts good people who don't want to hurt other people, you have to lay the foundation by treating everyone equally. Bad behavior is bad behavior, and is treated as such.

That is how I run my communities. If someone does not like it, they can go elsewhere. That's what freedom is about.

Is it boring? Maybe for some. But it is possible to have a rigorous debate without wishing someone dead, making threats, doxing them, and using offensive slurs. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to disagree with someone without resorting to personal attacks and violence.