Email and Usenet used to have the same barrier to entry, you needed someone to host and provide NNTP, POP3 and SMTP servers for you to access them. This was usually your ISP or IT department.
Modern internet users have become so conditioned by FB, Gmail, etc to think that the only way you can access content is though one of these monolithic providers. There are some users who think that FaceBook is the internet (just like Early AOL, MSN and CompuServe users of the 90’s).
I would like to see small ISPs provide federated instances for their subscribers, just like their email servers and the NNTP servers from days of yore. Since most independent ISP churn is triggered by word-of-mouth, it would be a great marketing platform.
Email and Usenet used to have the same barrier to entry, you needed someone to host and provide NNTP, POP3 and SMTP servers for you to access them. This was usually your ISP or IT department.
Modern internet users have become so conditioned by FB, Gmail, etc to think that the only way you can access content is though one of these monolithic providers. There are some users who think that FaceBook is the internet (just like Early AOL, MSN and CompuServe users of the 90’s).
I would like to see small ISPs provide federated instances for their subscribers, just like their email servers and the NNTP servers from days of yore. Since most independent ISP churn is triggered by word-of-mouth, it would be a great marketing platform.