Are Mastodon users really that dim or are they trolls? Encrypted messaging is good unless the government uses it? I don't understand their reasoning.
There's dolts on HN (myself included probably), but not everybody is a moron. Twitter was the same story.
So yes, I do not think this thread full of fundamental misunderstandings on mastodon could have happened a year ago, at least it's not nearly as likely, or to this scale.
Email is used by people who have no idea what it really is, and I would bet more than half of those people don't know what decentralization is.
Shall we do HTTPS and DNS next?
You're lamenting a piece of software being apolitical and its users largely becoming non-militant in their ideology. Users are users. If the purpose of Mastodon is to provide a decentralized Twitter-like experience then that's what it has succeeded in doing.
Do we boo and hiss over grandma using an Android phone because she doesn't believe in the power of open source or even know what it is?
If they're paying your paychecks, you're going to think twice about implementing features they won't like.
Chrome also still allows uBlock, etc. (myself on FF though)
Govts also use the JVM or Linux: did those projects suffer?
I think FLOSS is for all: the good guy and the bad guy (in whomever's eyes), its about freedom not control.
(Edit: You see it’s funny because this is a generalization, pretty dim right!)
That being said, I find it difficult to take most of the comments seriously when the debate quickly descends into conspiracy theories about theoretical encryption backdoors.
However, most of the comments seem to be pure paranoia, but you see such paranoia on all tech sites. There are plenty of accusations of backdoors and government plants to be found here on HN too. The difference is that social media doesn't have downvotes to get those messages out of view when you first open the page.