Post
Hm.
What if a social media space where all comments-sections were, structurally, follower-only,
and in particular boosting carried neither permission to comment nor a list of known responses, that list only lived in a canonical location of the OP, and GET/POST the comments required view-permissions (I think there's a cryptographic way of encoding this, I'll defer to Willow Protocol for all that work this is just a thoughts) on the account?
@gaditb did you just describe a premium SubStack newsletter?
I mean, using open protocols but like... fundamentally the same protections?
@sixohsix I think that's one thing described, yeah,
although I also think that it inherits that from blogs-with-a-comments-section-in-general.
I think there are also other things it could describe, tho, I think there are more decisions to make.
(I was imagining open protocols yeah but honestly I don't think it matters, I was trying to think the shape/dynamics of the social space.)
@sixohsix AH, one difference between both Substack and the-idea-implicitly-gestured-to-by-posting-this-here,
and blogs + comments-sections,
is the association of each comment with a particular, external-to-the-OP, identity. (Rather than the anonymous or per-post ad-hoc identities in blog comments.)
Such that "do I have a preexisting (positive or negative) relationship with this commenter" and "what has this commenter posted as an OP" (and possibly "what other comments has this person posted"? but maybe there's a reason not this one?) are always-meaningful questions (as opposed to rarely-meaningful).
@sixohsix EDIT: Wait, is Substack NOT built on open protocols? Like, they use their design to (a) centralize financial transactions through themselves to rent-seek a cut and (b) exercise moderation privileges to remove content (and (c) exercise moderation privileges to promote selected content, iirc?),
but is that (closed, but the design I'm imagining might be closed itself) design not built using the open protocol of HTTP and the currently-somewhat-open protocol of SMTP/DKIM/etc./the-required-config-ecosystem-around-it?
EDIT2: Ah, wait, it's also built on the rather-closed payment protocols, too.
@sixohsix EDIT3:
... although, the fact that my design-imagine is (attempting) to NOT have a central owner that exercises moderation control, I guess /is/ the attempt to build on open protocols.
Like, the social space/constellation of social spaces pointed at by by "the Substacks I follow and comment on" doesn't include Substack as a member, just as a protocol/substrate,
and is uncomplicatedly closed.
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