I’m thinking the same way smartphones are solved where only small increments of improvement happen. Radical changes happenen, like folding phones or the rise of Tiktok. Some have long lasting problems like the former, but the latter managed to pick a fight with the giants and come out on top.

Back to market terms, they’re mature but new players have proven to disrupt the market. When the general public start caring about privacy, federated social media will rise. Seeing how that is quite a politicised thing, progress will be slow. I’d love to be proven wrong though.

I think social media is a solved problem at this point, you’ll need something radical or game changing to actually break through in this market. Combined with the fact that the fediverse is inherently much more difficult to monetize I don’t see many companies taking on that challenge.

FOSS projects might though, but they tend to grow too slow to be disruptive.

You’re going to love SolidPods, honestly. From the website:

Solid is a specification that lets individuals and groups store their data securely in decentralized data stores called Pods. Pods are like secure web servers for data. When data is stored in a Pod, its owners control which people and applications can access it.

I see no possible way that a centralized identity can be more private that an array of separate ones.

Check out the specifications as well, using Pods you could have seperate accounts on every platform linked only by the ability to login using your Pod.

convenience thing first and a privacy thing second

This is convenience and privacy, with a SolidPod you decide who stores the data. It could be you, it could be any federated instance, but that data is encrypted and you decide which application can use which data. They use a WebID (see this as a hash of your unique profile) to identify the user and this would be the only data that is shared between you and any federated instance.

You might be missing the point. Again, the EU will send them a bill and a firm letter, but they don’t have any authority to actually demand payment. That fact has nothing to do with GDPR but with the fact that it’s an entirely different sovereignty.

The EU could sue them, they could impose sanctions on other companies for dealing with said company. They have an enormous amount of power to make sure said company can never deal with anything EU related. They have tried to sue companies in the US for not complying but no outcome for that is known.

That is why you see the cookie notices and general compliance, but also if you’re a relatively small company it’s actually not that hard to comply. It gets exponentially more difficult the larger you get but if you’re that large than you’ll definitely be dealing with world economics, including the EU which gives a lot of incentive to comply.

if actually read up what GDPR is

I have and was a part of my curriculum. Bit arrogant innit

“your point” was that the EU can force a fine on any foreign company operating outside the EU for not following local laws, which is ridiculous. But I agree with the rest.

Ofcourse they do, because they want to keep their business working in Europe. Which doesn’t apply to a decentralized system like the fediverse. But they do not have to pay the fine if they shut down all operations within Europe, which no company wants to do.

Oh for sure they will try to fine, but being another sovereignty they have no authority to force a payment.

Yet GDPR requires if you operate anywhere but allow European citizens to register, you have to be GDPR compliant as well, or risk being blocked by an entire continent.