It seems like Mastodon is losing its mindshare to #Bluesky among many academics.
I can't help but think this has to do with the self-imposed limitations of Mastodon — lack of quotes, ordered timeline, etc. Makes it less interesting to use, for no real advantage.
Sad, because the underlying decentralization is much more robust.
Codes of conduct have started to become close to ubiquitous in academic conferences (my impression in astro).
If we could get software ethics into codes of conduct - making it clear that the choice of software and servers is ethically significant for the role of academic enquiry as part of the wider community, then #TyrannyOfConvenience arguments could start to become as unacceptable as bigotry.
It is indeed another attack on #openData principles.
luckily there will always be people fighting to keep the Internet free
Google’s move makes the fight much more uphill for freedom fighters. The real problem is the masses of pawns who fail to vote with their feet. Some of them voted with their feet merely because CAPTCHA is inconvenient. Eliminating the CAPTCHA puts these #tyrannyOfConvenience users on the wrong side of the fight.
Google engineers want to make ad-blocking (near) impossible (stackdiary.com)