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?
Anyone can run one. Why not run one yourself for $20/month?
Which leads to the question … what if the owner no longer has any money to pay $20 / month … what if his instance grows popular and now he has to pay $40/month $100/month $500/month … I can appreciate the goodwill of people but whenever anyone puts lots of energy into any activity, eventually it costs money, time and effort … all of which does not come for free and usually comes with a price