Remember folks, if you abandon Twitter, Facebook or Google, it's not a boycott, it's a STRIKE.
Because you're the [unpaid] workers that earn them billions of dollars in capital.
When you don't post, they don't get the benefit of your labour. And when you don't use, they lose money.
Social Media STRIKE days should be a thing.
@photopuck This worked for Wikipedia. People went on strike early in Wikipedia's history, and it was forced to be a non-profit when Wales intended for it to be a for-profit venture.
@abbenm @photopuck
Yes. I have a chapter in my book, Reverse Engineering Social Media, about it. Nate Tkacz has written about it. It involved the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
@photopuck @abbenm They explicitly referred to it as a strike. At the time, the address was wikipedia.com -- as in commercial venture -- not wikipedia.org, as it is today.
@robertwgehl @photopuck Woah, that is fascinating.
It was always peculiar to me that a self professed libertarian (an objectivist even!) had such a deeply altruistic perspective about how wikipedia ought to be run.
I guess I'll have to read your book to know the full story.
@abbenm @photopuck You're certainly welcome to buy the book, but I am pretty sure there are pirated copies online, wink wink nudge nudge.
The central person was named Edgar Enyedy, who led a strike when Larry Sanger hinted WP was going to start selling ad space. Enyedy and comrades took the entire Spanish language WP to another server. This was when WP was first going international, so it was vulnerable.
@photopuck @robertwgehl I remember this!
Wikia was born out of this.
@Elizafox @photopuck @robertwgehl This definitely explains a lot about Wikia as "Actually by the wikipedia people, but for profit and shittier"
@photopuck @robertwgehl @even_more_damned_muteKi They exploit volunteer labour too
Profiting on the backs of volunteers is gross
@robertwgehl @photopuck what?! is that true?