Elliott C. Evans writes:
>Joshua K. wrote:
>> Really, the model of communication for the current Internet is
>> "disaspora" -- and you lose a lot more by fighting it than by
>> embracing it.
>(I'm assuming you mean "Diaspora", the software.)
Nope. I mean "diaspora", the concept. Aside from spam (which, yes,
was a big issue), the primary reason a lot of stuff moved away from
usenet is that we simply got too many people on the Internet. Too
many people means its harder and harder to hold a coherent
conversation, which pushes things toward smaller, managable
conversation.
Basically, as the number of people on the net approaches the number of
alive humans on the planet, the prior goal of "lets have everyone on
the net talking about the same subject in the same place at the same
time" becomes a complete non-starter and you optimize towards having
more decentralized conversations with points of connection between
them (and self-sorting to particular conversation groups on a
particular topic).
>When the mailing lists were started in the 1990's email was the
>future. It's good to see the Looneys moving discussions out of
>a 20th century model into a 21st century model.
FWIW, it's worth noting that that vast majority of conversation on the
net is -still- using email. That 21st century stuff hasn't really
caught on yet. :) FB is big, but email? Still a lot bigger.
>3) I'm concerned that I'm being left behind. Maybe it's by my own
>choice, but how many others are simply being lost?
Indeed.
--
Joshua Kronengold (mneme@xxxxxx) "Release the tera- |\ _,,,--,,_ ,)
--^--port patents...and drop everything into the public /,`.-'`' -, ;-;;'
/\\domain. OPEN SOURCE." "It's so scary when you say |,4- ) )-,_ ) /\
/-\\\it like that" -- Howard Taylor (Schlock Mercenary) '---''(_/--' (_/-'