Some parts of the Mastodon community are hostile towards VC Funding, AI, and cryptocurrency, particularly because of their entanglement with enshittification and hype cycles. These people are worried that this relationship will lead Mastodon down an unhealthy path that prioritizes the wrong things. It’s a totally understandable concern, but it’s important to remember the mission and purpose of Mastodon’s US entity: to manage and raise donations in the United States. This is not an executive department making decisions for the Mastodon project, and they aren’t shareholders expecting to make some kind of financial returns. A healthy board requires a diverse set of opinions and experiences that educate the real decision-makers so they can get multiple perspectives on problems they need to solve. It seems like this board’s variety of backgrounds has been set up to do exactly that.
…This really doesn’t soothe my concerns at all! Actually, up until right now, I hadn’t even been paying enough attention to have concerns. So… if anything, this article has inspired concerns I didn’t already have.
It’s like if the server at a restaurant came up to you and said “now I know what you’re thinking… we did in fact recently hire some cannibals. But they only work in the business office, not the kitchen!”