zlacker

>>waxpan+(OP)
> I felt sad for the guy. It’s awful going through life never believing in anything.

Being an idealist is fine, but being a dick is not. This article took on some personal schadenfreude after I read this line.

>>Andrex+lZ
There was definitely a certain amount of "I told you so" vibes, but I don't blame the author. It appears that he was attacked by a lot of Ello founders and fans for raising some cautionary notes. And as it turns out, he was right and they were wrong.

We would all like to have a model where users don't get charged money, and yet are not the product. But I haven't seen a model that works to date. In some cases, I don't mind my personal date getting sold; in other cases I pay money because the service is valuable. But I certainly make backups since I don't assume that even when I pay $$$, that the company might not go poof in the night....

>>tytso+p31
> I haven't seen a model that works to date

IRC. NNTP. SMTP. XMPP. HTTP.

It's just that nobody wants to work on protocols anymore. Ever since the world's richest was suddently a computer guy, no one wants to work on anything without a business model that includes taking complete control over what is built. A product, if you will.

In the background, there's always some geeks slaving away with new protocols and federated models. That will not become mainstream, not in our current society. But societies change over time. There is always hope.

Protocols, not products, people!