I’ve been talking to many people about the controversy with Reddit, why I left it and why I went onto Lemmy, Kbin and Mastadon instead. Some of my friends have commented that the control is still a problem as other platforms and it is all dependent on who owns the software, who owns the hardware, who are the admins, who are the moderators and which community or group has the most influence.
Who are these people that influence the most control on the fediverse? Are they Conservative? Are they Liberal? Are they Republican? Are they Democrat? Do they lean to the left of politics? to the right? or are they center? Are they even political? But also if they had to be would they easily or not so easily influenced?
So … for the ELI5 version of the question … Who owns the fediverse?
As I mentioned in my other replies on this thread … I think it is important for anyone of us to know who the owners and operators are of the instance we use. It not only protects us users but it also keeps those owners and operators accountable to what they created and maintain.
The logic works the other way too … users should understand that these services require funds and money in order to operate … we can’t just expect tech specialists and hobbyists and technology enthusiasts to just work for free … they have to pay for hardware, they have to pay for rentals, they have to pay for services and most importantly they should be paid something for all their time, effort and expertise.
Nothing comes for free … and when we take for granted all these free services and free work that are being done by anonymous people, eventually they will get tired of working so hard and they will drift towards a position of looking for money and in seeing monetary value to all the work they created, and then sell it to a corporation that can take advantage of it.
Which is why I find it important to know who the owners of my instance is … and if I like them, I may want to send some funds their way to help support the work they do.