Something About The SWF Makes Me Feel Icky

Note: this is a personal opinion piece for my blog. It is not an official statement coming from We Distribute, nor does it articulate that I feel as though everything is horrible and bad. It mostly serves a purpose of talking through my feelings.

Today was interesting, but in the kind of way that gives me a migraine. A shiny new non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the Fediverse launched, and We Distribute was there to put out an article announcing it.

What followed was an all-day social networking parade, showering Evan with accolades and congratulations. And you know what? They should be. Getting an organization off the ground is hard work, the Fediverse needs an organization dedicated towards marketing, advocacy, and inter-project collaboration. I wish them the best.

So, what's the problem?

What's in a Name?

The term "Social Web" has been used on and off for a little while now, most prominently being offered as a simpler, cleaner name than "Fediverse". Unfortunately, the term is a bit vague, in that it simply puts two words in a blender and mixes them together.

During a discussion prior to FediForum March 2024, I proposed an alternate name: "Womp Triangle", because it holds just about as much meaning and insight as the words "Social" and "Web" put together. Without any defining characteristics, it's hard to derive meaning from terminology alone. It's also confusing, because haven't we been using the Web in a Social way since the very early days?

Womp Triangle: "a metaphorical descriptor for a federated network topology that incorporates ideas from Semantic Web, Social Web, and IndieWeb and rolls it all together into one uniform system of coherence. Informally referred to as Web 420.69."

My goofy name ended up as a funny piece of online performance art (thanks, Andy Piper), but the term "Social Web" stuck. Despite its blandness, it's a lot less clunky than the term "Fediverse", even though I think Fediverse has more juice.

More to the Point

Here's the thing: in the time that term started seeing traction, a number of different things fell under the banner of the Social Web term: ActivityPub and the Fediverse? Social Web. Bluesky and Nostr? Social Web. Matrix and IndieWeb? Fuck it, why not? Social Web.

So, we have this kinda-vague, kinda-umbrella term that covers a lot of different things. But you know what? That's okay. It's inclusive, and can describe a lot of competing and collaborating efforts under one umbrella.

Context Collapse

The creation of The Social Web Foundation deftly and carefully subverts that context, in such a way that the term "Social Web" only equals "Fediverse". It even goes as far as wringing out the Fediverse's own historical context as a multiprotocol polyglot network, by equating the Fediverse to just the ActivityPub protocol. Hey, look everybody, it's Evan, the bold creator of The Social Web / Fediverse, with his one protocol that powers the entire thing!

Suddenly, neither label is all-that-inclusive anymore. We've managed to take one term with maybe 8 different contexts (Social Web), and a second term with 4 or 5 different contexts (Fediverse), and we...folded it all into one exclusive meaning. Suddenly, Bluesky and Nostr aren't part of The Social Web anymore, and maybe don't even fall into the definition of the Fediverse. Y'know, despite there being protocol bridges that let us all talk to each other.

Let's Talk About Evan

You might think I'm diving into this with sour grapes, but I'm really not. I love Evan. He has a personality that lights up a room. When you talk to him about ideas and visions of the future, you can come away from it feeling incredibly inspired. Evan is good people, and I wish I talked to him more often. I mean that sincerely.

There's an aspect to Evan's personality that's kind of concerning, though, and I've seen multiple red flags come up this year. The first was a response to an article draft about fixing ActivityPub's perceived shortcomings. Admittedly, I was asking for his feedback, failed to mention that this was only a first draft, and didn't give him the full context of what my intentions were. I reached out, and was surprised to see this.

Given that our interactions prior had been nothing but positive, this shift in tone took me off-guard. After some back-and-forth, and me explaining in detail what my aim was, he apologized. We reconciled, exchanged some kind words of mutual support, and all was forgiven.

I'd like to think that overall, we're friends, and on good terms with one another. However, one unfortunate tic that I've started to notice from him involves how he talks about his project vs how he talks about competing independent efforts that have little to do with him. In the past, Evan has characterized efforts such as Bluesky's ATProto as "a dangerous distraction", and that BlueSky is "a bad product", presumably because Bluesky ultimately settled on creating their own bespoke protocol after seeing that nothing quite fit what they were trying to do.

There's a level of fractal wrongness here that's as remarkable as it is telling. While these may have been plans for the early Bluesky project by a pre-Elon Twitter, the reality of ATproto and Bluesky is markedly different today. The current shape of the protocol is influenced by the involvement of people such as Paul Frazee, who has years and years of development experience in building for varying kinds of distributed systems. Notably, he did work on both Secure Scuttlebutt as well as Beaker Browser, and some of the lessons there have informed the architectural decisions ATproto have made today. Sure, there's still areas where Bluesky could be "more decentralized" than it is currently, but...y'know, they already have working federation between PDS'es and are focusing on getting the various layers of their stack right?

More recently, Evan randomly communicated to somebody that their own protocol effort was a waste of time, and that they should build on ActivityPub instead. He has since edited his language and deleted the offending post, but the messaging was effectively: "You should build on ActivityPub. If you're not going to build on it, then your project is a waste of people's time."

This seems to be a recurring pattern with Evan, whether the subject is AT Protocol, Bluesky, Nostr, Veilid, whatever: if you're not working on the thing I'm building, your thing is undermining the collective efforts of this community. Which, if you think about this from the perspective of decentralization...that's a fucking ridiculous take.

I understand the argument that "having too many standards can hinder innovation and hurt collaborative efforts", and while I don't completely agree with it, I can see some validity in how the case can be made. However, telling people they're wrong because their standard didn't get a seal of approval slapped on the side of it after a grueling and miserable design-by-committee process is fucking insane. Which, by the way, was in fact traumatizing for several people trying to develop a protocol standard.

Why is he like this?

Despite a small smattering of examples that may or may not be deemed "cherry picked" by the peanut gallery, Evan is still a great human being. I mean that sincerely, and I'm not trying to undermine his efforts by portraying him in some extremely unfavorable light. That goes against my principles both as a journalist and as someone who has been in the space almost as long as he has.

I think a lot of his hostility stems from how Evan has identified with ActivityPub and the Fediverse over time. From his perspective, this entire thing is his baby, his claim to fame, his life's work. And there's a lot to be proud of! However, Evan has also experienced personal setbacks and hardships, first in the shutdown of his company, StatusNet, and later in the prolonged, drawn-out development of Pump.io, the client API of which would eventually form the prototype for ActivityPub. While the seeds of his efforts have bore much fruit today, there was a period between 2013 to 2019 where Evan wasn't really present on any part of the Fediverse. It wasn't until the later stage of Mastodon's success that he rejoined the network. He's thriving today, and I'm happy for him.

Look man, I get it. There have been plenty of days where I blame myself for the direction Diaspora took. The feelings of loss I get from thinking about what could have been, and what happened instead, have had a monumentally bad impact on my mental health. It has taken years for me to accept failure, to grow into who I am today, and to try, try again. I thought the thing I was a part of was going to change the world, then it all went off-track for a variety of reasons.

Does any of this matter?

I don't know. I did a lot of thinking throughout the day today, and felt sick to my stomach about all this. For at least a few hours, I wondered if any of the work I've done in this space actually fucking matters at all, or if the entire thing has been a waste.

Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing, maybe things aren't that bad, maybe I should just shut my fat fucking mouth. What I do know is that, in trying to erect this new foundation, we're also rewriting history in the process, and selectively choosing who to include, and who to forget about. Some people have posted backlash about corporations such as Flipboard and Meta and a "chosen few" Fediverse platforms having seats at the Partners table, but I kind of think that's of marginal importance. Oh, Meta's going to have a seat at the table?! They're going to write protocol extensions and implementations that inherently favor their bottom line?! I'm fucking shocked.

Except, y'know, the W3C isn't exactly a left-anarchist's paradise, where all of the members are tenured staff singing kumbaya, as they ethically hand-craft technology from reclaimed code. Corporations have a massive presence in the W3C, and the SocialWG is no different. Any Meta, Amazon, or Google can waltz in. We have to break this illusion that the organization is anything other than hired people sponsored by corporations working on some common shared goals together.

Wrap it up, asshat

My growing concern is over what place the community will have in the governance process, or any decision-making process. As the echelons of power consolidate into a handful of decision-makers, as the emphasis focuses more on making a profit, as the gap widens between "leadership" and the poor sods hanging around at the bottom, the mutual aspect of community welfare gives way towards a dynamic very reminiscent of what we were all trying to get away from at one point or another: a fucking mall on the Internet, where people used to hang out.

My simple plea is this: don't hasten that division. Don't isolate yourself into an exclusive corner and denote all other efforts as wrong and inferior and bad. Immerse yourself in the people, and be of the people. Be a part of them. Learn from them. Humble yourself. Dig deep into community spaces, rather than creating an exclusive ivory tower for yourself and a privileged few. Most of them don't give two fucks about this place, beyond the status of appearing cutting-edge, the privilege of being our gatekeepers, and the benefit of building giant funnels for our attention, our data, and our money to fall into.

I still very much believe in the Fediverse, ActivityPub, and what The Social Web Foundation is trying to do. As Rabble once put it: we're all part of Team Open. There's no reason for us to want to try to destroy each other.