Why we need to move on from kbin.social

I think most of us who moved here from Reddit are enjoying our time here on kbin.social. We've left a lot of the riff-raff behind us and made new friends with intelligent, thoughtful members of kbin, Lemmy, Mastodon, etc..

But we need to spread out.

Not only have we stressed the server with thousands of immigrating users, but we were being watched by darker forces, namely Meta and Instagram.

A quick search of the net will show that we were not the first mass-migration. The first migration was last year when people from 'the bird site' (rhymes with jitter) fled Elon Musk's new regime. Most of those people moved to Mastodon.

We largely moved to kbin. Kbin.social to be more exact.

I'm a member of both Mastodon and kbin, and a couple of posts shocked me. The first one about Meta I have found again:

https://mastodon.social/@gnarkotics/110568580882355105

The second one about Instagram I have failed to locate, but the gist was that Instagram had reached out to one of the larger Fediverse servers and asked the person who runs to have a meeting 'off the record'. That person turned them down and told other members of the Fediverse what happened. The general consensus is that this was going to be a monetary offer to allow Instagram to further colonize the Fediverse by purchasing one of the larger servers.

And therein lies the problem: if the majority of users gravitate to a few large servers, then that leaves those larger servers vulnerable to exploitation.

I, as a recent immigrant, did not understand this. I thought that, intuitively, we should all gather in one place and grow the server. It's the exact opposite. We need to spread out to smaller instances. This didn't really register with me until I spoke with this person.

https://fedi.getimiskon.xyz/objects/77a0f3cd-6f31-42f7-a3ea-29af8b25c0b3

Remember too that having an account on a smaller instance still allows us to see everything on kbin.social. For example, look at this:

https://kbin.social

We are looking at a mixture of posts from Lemmy and kbin.

Moving to a smaller instance does not limit your interactions. What damages the fediverse is people trying to recreate all of Reddit on one instance.

TLDR: If you like it here, the best thing you can do for the fediverse right now is to set up on one of the less populous instances.

I invite correction and clarifications.

EDIT: Adding further sources below.

Meta/Facebook is inviting Fediverse admins under NDA for “meetings” (mstdn.social)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36384207

Facebook, Inc. is planning to join the Fediverse. How do we make it lose as much money as possible?
https://www.loomio.com/d/QoH98Gg6/facebook-inc-is-planning-to-join-the-fediverse-how-do-we-make-it-lose-as-much-money-as-possible

Beware Of Meta Offering Gifts To Mastodon
https://medium.com/nextwithtech/beware-of-meta-offering-gifts-to-mastodon-6adb317e039d

Meta vs Mastodon: Battle for the Future of Decentralized Social Media
https://marketingnewscanada.com/news/meta-vs-mastodon-battle-for-the-future-of-decentralized-social-media

Legal-Copyright discussion from Mastodon yesterday
ttps://mas.to/@franktaber/110602489997086618

And a cartoon to boot

https://cutie.city/@nuz/110602855304673785

CFinley97,

I won't downvote bc I think this is a genuine question OP is presenting, but I disagree with people splitting quite yet.

People will naturally find their pockets as the Fediverse grows. The benefit is that it's already decentralized, so you have that option.

Gargleblaster,
@Gargleblaster@kbin.social avatar

Decentralized means that the userbase is spread out. How big is kbin.social?

sentient_loom,
Gargleblaster,
@Gargleblaster@kbin.social avatar

And does that look decentralized?

NotTheOnlyGamer,
@NotTheOnlyGamer@kbin.social avatar

You're probably wrong about what Meta's intents are for the Fediverse. We've heard some things about a prospective product from Meta called "Threads", which would be connected to the fediverse or the threadiverse. I'm looking forward to what they bring, and what it will mean for communication through Meta. If they can make it more locally focused and make it easier to reach out to people local to me, I will be very interested; doubly if it can be used from a web browser. I actually want a central place to communicate. I also understand that these companies need to make money; and I recognize that I am a user, not a customer. I have no interest in paying, so I'll defend myself in a marginal way and just keep moving.

Satiric_Weasel,

If you aren't paying for a service provided by a corporation, you aren't the customer, you're the product.

Meta, as a corporation, is fundamentally subservient to investors to generate profit; if something can't be monetized it won't happen. I can't speak to the specific intent Meta has in expanding into the fediverse, but I can say with confidence based upon not only their long and well documented MALICOUS behavior, but also the basic nature of Capatalistic endeavor that they should now nor ever be trusted to act in good faith. They are incapable of doing so, period.

I don't consider myself a hard-line socialist, but the access to information and the discourse surrounding that information should not be determined by an entity whose interests are primarily self serving in nature.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
@NotTheOnlyGamer@kbin.social avatar

I don't consider myself a hard-line socialist, but the access to information and the discourse surrounding that information should not be determined by an entity whose interests are primarily self serving in nature.

I don't have a problem with that, honestly. My interests are primarily self-serving in nature, which is why I'm not interested in paying. If I'm interested in what Meta is doing, I'll buy more shares. Plus, like I said, I'm interested in the product if it serves my needs; otherwise I don't need it. I work for a company that's focused on profit as well, I don't consider it a shame anymore, since my goal is to make money and keep my money in my pocket as well.

ThatBikeGuy,

i think whats missing is the ability to migrate a community to a different server within the federation.

spacedogroy,

This is a bit premature. If and it is a big if a nefarious corporate entity was to purchase an instance, then magazines would be re-established on other instances and so would users. The instance would effectively die off and be reborn elsewhere. For most people I sense this wouldn't be an issue as the cost of moving instances and creating new accounts is generally quite low.

If you are concerned around the possibility though, you can always set up a new single user instance, which you have more control over.

To be honest, the only reason to move accounts at this point would be if the instance administrator asked - due to issues with load, for example - in order to be a good citizen. Until that time, try not to worry and enjoy the fediverse 🙂

ernest,
@ernest@kbin.social avatar

Hey, I think there's a lot of truth in that. I don't want to force anyone to stay here ;) I believe that kbin can be a stepping stone to a wider fediverse, which is great. However, I'm trying to keep the entry barrier as low as possible so that everyone can find their place here. The rest will come with time. Currently, we're working with contributors to make setting up and maintaining your own instance less of a nightmare, and it should change for the better soon.

https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/p/485886/This-happened-quickly-Lemmy-is-now-the-second-biggest-platform-next#post-comment-855115

ps. The queue of deleted accounts will be processed with the next update.

ninjakitty7,

Thanks for all the hard work!

LostCause,

I agree with you actually and I already made accounts on some Lemmy instances, one of which is tiny and real nice. I still use this one for now as it‘s easier for me on mobile, but I‘m checking the others too and it has the same content! I will probably switch over completely once a few more apps released.

jalda,
@jalda@kbin.social avatar

That doesn't make any sense. Why would Facebook be interested in buying existing instances? The code is open source, they can use it without asking permission. Their server infrastructure is way better that anything we have. And our user base is ridiculously small compared to theirs (Instagram has more than one billion users!). The danger of Facebook taking over the Fediverse is not that they buy instances, it's that they Embrace-Extend-Extinguish us.

That being said, I do think that we "are using the Fediverse wrong", and that we should gravitate to smaller instances of like-minded people. This would make much easier instance-level moderation and server load, and de-federation would make more sense. Now there are a bunch of generalist big instance (kbin.social, lemmy.ml, lemmy.world, beehaw.org, sh.itjust.works) that are federating/defederating for reasons that aren't completely transparent to their users. But if you have, say, a small doglove.rs instance and a small catlove.rs instance, they can defederate themselves without impacting users that are not involved in the beef amongst the instances.

Gargleblaster,
@Gargleblaster@kbin.social avatar

Meta/Facebook is inviting Fediverse admins under NDA for “meetings” (mstdn.social)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36384207

Facebook, Inc. is planning to join the Fediverse. How do we make it lose as much money as possible?
https://www.loomio.com/d/QoH98Gg6/facebook-inc-is-planning-to-join-the-fediverse-how-do-we-make-it-lose-as-much-money-as-possible

Beware Of Meta Offering Gifts To Mastodon
https://medium.com/nextwithtech/beware-of-meta-offering-gifts-to-mastodon-6adb317e039d

Meta vs Mastodon: Battle for the Future of Decentralized Social Media
https://marketingnewscanada.com/news/meta-vs-mastodon-battle-for-the-future-of-decentralized-social-media

Legal-Copyright discussion from Mastodon yesterday
ttps://mas.to/@franktaber/110602489997086618

And a cartoon to boot

https://cutie.city/@nuz/110602855304673785

DrowR,

When I read the dev post the other day, I thought of the possible issue with servers. Stress and particularly financing. Yes, users could donate, but I feel it's not sustainable long term.
Hope account migration could come soon. Preferably across Fediverse. Not only within Kbin.

readbeanicecream,
@readbeanicecream@kbin.social avatar

I like it here. I will stay awhile. I tried mastodon and beehaw. Both of them are fine, but I must prefer kbin.social. As things evolve, who knows what will happen, but for now, I am content.

CoderKat,
@CoderKat@kbin.social avatar

One thing I'll say is that both kbin and Lemmy need improvements in order to recommend smaller instances. The UX around being the first in the server to subscribe to a sub is really, really bad. Seriously, try it if you haven't yet. Magazine search won't find the sub. It won't show up on the front page. If you try and visit the sub, you'll get a 404 and no way to subscribe. You have to know specifically how to search for the sub in order to get the option to subscribe, and even then you won't see any existing content in it.

The problem is less impactful in larger instances because there's a better chance that you're not the first or that the sub was basically "seeded" for major instances. It's a terrible divide in UX.

Boabab,
@Boabab@kbin.social avatar

I read this comments about how Mastedon fixes cross-instance UX behaviour. I think it is exactly what Kbin and Lemmy need:

https://kbin.social/m/kbinDesign/t/9464/We-should-be-able-to-click-links-on-other-lemmy-kbin#entry-comment-50733

osc,
@osc@kbin.social avatar

Meta requesting NDAs to discuss P92 means literally nothing. I once signed a NDA with a prospect (not even a client), and the whole thing unraveled in a very nasty way when said prospect showed very little respect for my work. The fact Meta wants people to sign NDAs to discuss a not-yet-public project is no grand conspiracy to kill the Fediverse. It's literally just how companies work.

More generally, the discourse over Meta joining the Fediverse is beyond irrational. People are discussing rumors as if they were facts (is there any evidence that Meta has offered payments to Mastodon admins?). They hypothesize and catastrophize everything. What about facts and reasonable hypotheses?

I'm not trying to defend Meta here. I don't trust them, at all. But not trusting them, and inventing an alternative reality, are two completely different things.

steebo_jack,

We are more reactive than proactive so just wait till kbin.social gets bought out before migrating again to another - smaller - instance...

xwToRdD3YHv8Up,

Is there not a way that folks with server access can run a duplicate of this instance and then put it behind a load balanced proxy? If kbin does not support this, I say we help with the code to make this a possibility.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • [email protected]
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • oklahoma
  • feritale
  • KamenRider
  • Ask_kbincafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • KbinCafe
  • Socialism
  • SuperSentai
  • All magazines
    •