---
title = "Lament for the Commons"
date = 2023-07-03T14:00:00-05:00
---

> "The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters." -- Antonio Gramsci

It might be slightly overblown to be quoting an Italian communist imprisoned by Mussolini to criticise the decisions made by corporate social media this past month or so, but given their contributions to fascism globally, maybe it isn't... Either way, it has been interesting to see them all seemingly competing for 'worst decision'.

Reddit shut off most of the clients that other people did *for* them, making all that effort and work rather pointless, and now [blind Reddiors can't moderate r/blind](https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/14nzwkm/) despite assurances that accessibility apps wouldn't be affected and the accessibility of the official app would be improved.

Twitter, not to be one-upped, has now disabled the ability to view anything while not logged in, and paywalled actually being able to use the site. Ironically, even [the announcement](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1675187969420828672) isn't viewable. 600 tweets a day is, well, pratically nothing? On the Fediverse, our friends who actually post daily (sometimes to stream of consciousness levels) and have conversations average about 45-60 posts a day. We aren't particularly active anywhere and still manage to hit an average of 9.

Even Google has decided this week to do a trial run of only letting people watch 3 videos if they have an adblocker. I'm just waiting for the fourth shoe to drop on Discord.

The thing that gets me the most about all this is just how much of the past 10-20 years of culture and knowledge is just going to be lost. How many times during the protests on Reddit did we fail to find the answer we were looking for on a web search, because the answer can be found only where one person decided to share their knowledge and everyone else was relying on that? How many entertaining and teaching videos are likely going to be locked on YouTube behind obnoxious, [energy-wasting](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925517303505), mind-warping advertising?

I don't pretend to have the answers for how to get more people to care about things like service continuity or not putting the majority of the English-speaking world's knowledge on a single-digit number of websites backed by corporations that are in advertising business, not the information-hosting business. Most people don't think about things like that and shouldn't have to, because it's nerd shit that people like me should care about making happen for them, they just want to go to wherever the *stuff* is.

> The law locks up the man or woman  
> Who steals the goose off the common  
> But leaves the greater villain loose  
> Who steals the common from the goose.  
>  
> The law demands that we atone  
> When we take things we do not own  
> But leaves the lords and ladies fine  
> Who takes things that are yours and mine.  
>  
> The poor and wretched don't escape  
> If they conspire the law to break;  
> This must be so but they endure  
> Those who conspire to make the law.  
>  
> The law locks up the man or woman  
> Who steals the goose from off the common  
> And geese will still a common lack  
> 'Till they go and steal it back.  
>  
> -- Author unknown, 18th century England