Discussion
I know that the software systems that underpin the web are complex and configurable in millions of ways.
I know that simplifying the point of entry comes with a price. And usually that price is some sort of enclosure. Someone has done the work to create the simplified paths and make them robust and, understandably, wants to make money from their ‘platform’.
I know this.
Nonetheless, there is an enormous chasm between the people for whom installing and configuring is “easy”, and everybody else
…I remember @aral talking about this over a decade ago, and to my eye at least, we don’t appear to have gotten very far.
I know Aral is trying with Small Web, and I know many others here are doing something similar in spirit too.
But something keeps going missing. I’m not clever enough to pinpoint it.
Below is my attempt to narrate the pattern that I regularly encounter
@urlyman@mastodon.social Completely agree with your larger point though! We've got a long way to go. As you can see from our hosting page we'd love to see more of an ecosystem around hosting of FOSS, both with better UI and simpler onboarding (i.e. a step by step form that gets you from domain name to deployed app, as simple as signing up to SaaS but with autonomous infrastructure) and more cooperative economic models.
…Here’s an example and, please note, I am *not* singling @Bonfire out here. I’m aware somewhat of what they have been doing and roughly where they are in their ‘bikemap’, and I am excited about what that promises.
But following is my user journey as someone who knows front-end code, and is not a total klutz with back-end systems, and thinks what Bonfire are doing sounds good…
…1. I visit https://bonfirenetworks.org and see the below menu options.
Ok, I know I’m not equipped for DIY and probably never will be, and I’m just exploring so I’m not ready for the Mosaic discussion, but Hosted sounds good, so let’s take a look.
2. At https://bonfirenetworks.org/hosting/ there’s a nice big ‘Find a hosting partner’ link, which offers me an attractive tile for @coopcloud. Last time I looked I could make no sense of that, but I’ll see what’s changed…
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
…What saddens me is that when it comes to social software the bifurcation is especially acute.
On the one hand, there are people doing amazing pro-social systems work, but the point of entry they create is most often a high cognitive wall if you don’t already swim in the command line.
And on the other are platforms where the cost of entry is exceedingly low, but those platforms lean into extraction and manipulation.
I wish we could break this down a bit