All Our Selves in One Basket – on centralization of social spaces

The Viennese coffee shops were such a third space, before the 20th century came crashing down upon them.

One thing TFA doesn't mention is that town squares even provided the equivalent of Tinder: convention in many areas was that girls and boys would perambulate the square, circulating in opposite directions, one set clockwise and one set counterclockwise...

Yup. The way to cut the gordian knot that is the "moderation problem" is to realize making one set of rules for everywhere doesn't work. Some centralized communities get closer to this than others but the only robust way is self-hosting and federation.

Great read. It spells out in long detail the history of social spaces and the problems with the current spaces: Social Media (Twitter and Facebook in particular) and a call on how to improve things. It does seem difficult...