Have you tried it though? I find that it’s not lootbox-like in any way, although to some extent I suppose it depends on who you follow.

I do not accept “infinite scroll” as shorthand for all that bullshit. I don’t like infinite scroll much myself, for other reasons, but this is the Fediverse. There are plenty of people around here looking at pages containing nothing but things in chronological order posted by people they chose to follow, and choosing to load more by scrolling down.

How the scrollbar works says nothing about what’s on the page. You could make similar claims about web pages in general — you never really know if you’ll get what you were looking for. If anything, having to click “next” to try again would make it more like a loot box. But still not much like a loot box, usually.

No.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m31KxsBb78U

If we suppose that belief in Hell does some good for some people, what about belief in the Easter Bunny for an alternative? We could train everyone to know that the Easter Bunny exists in Heaven, takes a deep personal interest in every one of our lives, is always watching, and wants us to be good? Those who displease the Bunny will have bad luck until they repent. It might just work, if we’ve ruled out humanistic approaches to morality for some unstated reason.

I expect reddit will roll it out slowly and stop if they’re losing too many users. If they actually follow through and impose age “verification” on everyone it’ll be a bigger exodus than anything seen before — so they probably won’t.

I assume that scheme is part of a long-term effort from Google to reinforce the idea that nobody but them should be allowed to have root on their phones, and is therefore working as intended.

What do you mean? Everyone knows that protein comes from salamanders.

relevant xkcd

Neat. But it’s not pre social media. Social media has been around since the 1980s.

The fediverse has become the central hub for it all due to its nature. Any forums or whatever which want to join in and be a part of it are free to do so. It could perhaps be made easier, but that depends on the technical details of the protocols involved which are still hard to understand.

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Workers without a boss are like a fish without a bicycle.

The talking bomb in Dark Star was more realistic than the people of 1974 could’ve imagined.

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Oligarchs divide by multiplying

No, it would be less hated. Maybe only detested instead of loathed.

Yes, that is the kernel of truth at the bottom of the shitpost.

People were complaining about .ml long before I thought it was justified, but I looked again recently and yeah, maybe. This instance doesn’t federate with it so I don’t see it often. Based on my quick impressions the other day it’s gotten worse. Not that it’s an “echo chamber” and I don’t mind hanging out with communists, but there’s too much low-quality noise.

Personally I wouldn’t block the whole server if it were up to me. There are still good people there. Just be quick to block the people and posts you really object to.

Protecting children from accidentally seeing anything slightly sexy is naturally the top priority. That’s what is harmful to minors. We better all stick to legally safe things like racism-based disinformation.

… but yeah, the designers of mastodon deliberately chose to avoid posts any longer than very short.