We certainly need a more P2P, version of this type of platform and a way to fund and scale it such that it can’t be messed with by billionaire hacks.
The odds of this being wildly successful are pretty slim, I’d say…
Patreon, Substack, etc are no different. We’ve seen people be silenced on X. We’ve also seen payment processors disallow payments to organizations and whatnot.
This is all a problem.
True. I don’t think it was ever successful, because it requires a strong ideological point of view from the people who are supposed to support this idea. With so much distraction in the digital world today, this seems close to impossible.
So yes, another will rise up. But even better would be a distributed network that actually _works_, immune to the threat of centralization.
We already have that. Selfhosting is possible, and today even simpler than ever. And there is a multitude of systems and platforms which one can use to collect money as long as it's not doing something too critical, like porn or terrorism. Influencers have those field already covered well, and will continue building them to avoid the hefty shares on their usual platforms.
… which means it’s a problem.
There are lots of options for running your own Mastodon/ ActivityPub implementation, etc—it’s not easy, though. This is purely a technical problem.
Of course, I am not really talking about Chirp clones here, but this is a pretty good analogue for comparison.
You can dissent in an echo chamber but it doesn’t do any good.
(And also, they have some shared interests, like "staying rich", although I see you call that a "shared goal"; a distinction without a difference, it seems to me.)
I can’t think of many (Massie maybe?) rich (no black and white definition) that are using their wealth to better their fellow citizens to their own detriment. Most of them see it as another tax to prevent keep their heads attached.
Taking pie from other rich people is only lucrative because the wealth gap is so massive and consistently increasing. My point is rich people should be utilizing their wealth to enrich their fellow Americans (or whatever country they live in), but all the existing ones do not have this as a primary goal. They throw some pittances - just enough to keep people from revolting.
The majority of us are growing wealth so we don’t die on the streets. The rich have already cleared this goal post, and instead of making it their primary goal to give back they continue to take. Those in power could use their power to prevent this but don’t. That is their shared interest. It’s why every politician in America becomes more wealthy after entering office. It’s why corruption is rampant. It’s why we have no borders and let corporations abuse workers. The system is setup (this is the shared interest) to empower a few at the top.
wrong