Both of these proposals (as far as I've read them, YMMV) fail the evolutionary test. At the scale we're talking about, ideas must proceed as evolution does: not with a far-away goal in mind, but with incremental changes, each of which individually must be an improvement over the status quo.
We are at (near) a significant local maximum, and (again, as far as I've read, which is not all of it for sure) the people pitching this form of information control have given no set of steps from here to there without significant cost/effort.
Of course they don't have to have the whole path in mind. By definition they just need the first step or two. But they must be steps up.
You don't get wings by wanting to fly; first you need feathers to keep warm (I am not an evolutionary biologist, I don't know if that's a valid theory).
99.9% of BlueSky users use only Bluesky services. But BlueSky has a Personal Data Service for each. That means:
Those users have credible exit to take their data off BlueSky's hosting to someplace else (and as of a week or two ago to move back to BlueSky if they want).
Those users can put whatever kind of data they want in their PDS. They can host their git data via https://tangled.org . They can store their music listening scrobbles with https://teal.fm . They can blog on https://leaflet.pub .
And there's been rapidly advancing host it yourself options. Plenty of folk individually or collectively host PDS. There are alternate relays that collect &n syndicate out everyone's PDS data as that changes. Hosting the aggregation layer is significantly harder especially if you are trying to fully connect the network but there are a couple & progress is good.
it feels like a huge improvement over the status quo, and there's extremely visible developer energy building forward & rolling with the concepts. The breakdown on architecture allows for wins and work in various areas. The base seems solid, the core seems coherent & well built, built to scale not as one big thing but coherent layers. I think it's doing what you are asking for, and the signs of advancement & uptake warm my heart to see.
99.9% of BlueSky users use only Bluesky services.
I highly, highly doubt this, even in the narrowest sense of how many BlueSky users still actively post on X.
I think by "Bluesky services" PP meant atproto services, like PDS. Not social networks.
Yes, Bluesky as their only service provider when using atproto stuff.
The realistic path off looks like this, I think:
* I use Bluesky to chat as a Twitter replacement, which gets me into the Fediverse and gets me a PDS
* I use my PDS to store my payment details, giving me a (at first client-side) way to submit stored payment details that feels similar to storing it in the browser, but stores it in my "server"
* From there, it's a natural step to giving the retailer a token that can be used to pull payment details from my PDS; early adopter retailers are incentivized to do this because it frees them from the burden of storing and updating PII/PCI
* After some subset of users and retailers do this, users see the benefit of controlling their data as a viable alternative to some of the worst user-hostile patterns, e.g. the New York Times' "we don't have a cancel subscription page, you have to call an 800 number" nonsense.
* To the extent that storing PCI/PII in a PDS is as easy as storing it in the browser but with perceived additional benefits, user demand drives wider adoption
* Once it's technically feasible for sites to maintain their business model without storing any PII/PCI, it is much more realistic to write laws that proscribe it effectively for those users who choose that
FWIW, I've been able to cancel my NYT subscription with only a web form since I first subscribed in 2020. It works, and I use it every year. Some years there were several weeks before I got the discounted price again.
I wonder how many years need to pass after a company removes a user-hostile pattern before it should stop being lambasted for it. I don't know how long they did what you say, but I could see that 5 years might not yet be enough.
> I wonder how many years need to pass after a company removes a user-hostile pattern before it should stop being lambasted for it.
Why would there be a statute of limitations on this. A company doesn’t have an inherent right to customers. A lot of us gave up on Windows with XP (a second strike, after ME). Maybe it’s better now, maybe not, but why would I be motivated to give a company who screwed up already (due to making choices I hate, not just incompetence) another chance? NYT absolutely permanently lost customers by placing revenue above civility; which of us benefits from hoping people forget that?
You missed the point.
That's okay.
> each of which individually must be an improvement over the status quo
I agree. And looking at the average web user specifically, is "owning your own data" enough of a UX improvement? Maybe paired with less ads and products that optimize for the end-user rather than advertisers? I think... maybe. I hope so. It's going to take a lot of work done for little money, which is concerning, but I'm optimistic.