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Josh Marshall captures this dynamic well:
“As the Iran war drags on, I wanted to share some thoughts on the proper context in which to see the conflict. Donald Trump lost this war in its very first days. Everything that has happened in recent weeks — the threats, the negotiations, the live-on-social-media breakdowns — has simply been a matter of trying to get free of that fact. This isn’t a political attack. It’s simply an accurate appraisal of what we all see. More importantly, it is the only way to understand what is happening now. Everything that’s happening today and for weeks has been focused on breaking Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, something it didn’t have before the war started. That’s the definition of failure: fighting a war and continuing a war to clean up the mess the war of choice actually created….
The Iranian leadership sees that just as clearly as everyone else. And as [trump] waits he and the global economy sustain damage. He’s stuck and since he won’t recognize that fact the conflict and the massive damage to the global economy continues, even if the scale of the fighting, for the moment, doesn’t.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/making-sense-of-the-iran-war
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Am a fan of both Rabble & Ben, so very much looking forward to checking this out today: “Revolution.Social podcast with Rabble talking about an alternate history of social media….” #OpenSocialWeb
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This new AI tool called Malus.sh is pretty wild, cloning open source software to sidestep ANY copyright. I bet this sort of thing will change EVERYTHING for web and native apps, not just open source code, and probably sooner than we think.
So, how do developers survive when the “product” can be cloned instantly?
I saw this exact same thing occur to the music industry and more slowly to the film industry, who thought they were in the business of selling shiny discs to consumers and got beat out in part by pirates (which was a body blow) but then later legitimately by streamers (Netflix, Spotify, AppleMusic) who understood this: You have to move from a product mindset to a service and relationship mindset to the end users.
Music. Movies. Now it is software developers turn in the barrel. And soon, not just OSS software developers.
In the digital space, and even more now in the AI incarnation of a digital space we are moving from a Functional Economy to a Relational Economy.
In this new landscape, the “moat” isn’t your features or your codebase. Those can be mirrored or cloned or pirated. The only true protection left is Community and Momentum.
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Relational Value: Users stay because they want to be part of the ecosystem, the brand, and the direct feedback loop with the creators.
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Innovation Velocity: Users trust the true developer to innovate and iterate faster than a clone can keep up.
The value of software is shifting from what it does to who is building it and who is using it beside you. The clone might have the same code, but it doesn’t have the soul, the support, or the future roadmap. Are you building a product that can be copied, or a community that can’t?
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/malus-clones-software-copyright
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Very glad to see the #HardFork and SearchEngine podcast Fediverse community server continuing to thrive. So they are at 10,000 or so registered users, and hovering at a healthy 1.4 thousand of those as monthly active users. That tracks to normal rates on social.
And the conversations are active and growing. I think I underestimated the power of focused, topic-based server communities on the fediverse. (Ironic I know as i founded one based on the #Indieweb community) Those are as important or more than big general purpose servers.
Go #Forkiverse. Power on.
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Anil Dash’s piece is a wake-up call for the #OpenWeb. The threats he outlines feel scarily accurate, a “perfect storm” that needs us all to pause and then consider how to counter them. Definitely worth your time. www.anildash.com/2026/03/2…
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Mark Qvist built #Reticulum, an open mesh protocol some call “the next internet.” It ran on nearly any network, even the most meager, for free. Then he vanished. The dev community took over, and ran with it. Great story here: nodestar.net/mark-qvis…
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I’ve long been fascinated by the #mesh network #reticulum & the #LXMF messaging protocol built atop it—especially for areas w/o reliable Internet, or where govt. blackouts occur. I strongly believe bridges from LXMF to the open social web & open messaging protocols like #DeltaChat are strategic. I’d love to connect with others sharing similar thoughts.
Links: https://reticulum.network
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This tracks. #AI
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Every day of this hurts us more than them. And they know it. Not sure Trump does. [www.nytimes.com/live/2026…)
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Great news about an mRNA vaccine for pancreatic cancer, in early trials. It looks like patients who responded are still alive 6 years later. That’s a huge deal.
Am super hopeful for MRNA cancer vacines for a hosst of our deadliest cancers. #Science
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I’m convinced that very soon, all AI model capabilities will be negligible for most users & completely commoditized & also have near zero switching costs. No “moat” for any of them. #AI timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technolog…
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It’s a competitive field, but Brendan Carr, Trump’s FCC chairman, is second only to RFK Jr. (maybe Pete Hegseth) among Trump admin figures who’ll cause the longest-term damage to the most people. We’ll take decades to heal from them. www.politico.com/news/2026…
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Nothing to see here people. (sigh) I imagine everyone sitting around this meeting would have a hard time telling if they should sit on the “oligarchy” side or the “kleptocracy” side of the table. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/2…
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I’m looking to seee how #Nostr is going these days. #Primal seems to be the best UX I’ve seen for web, and maybe for mobile apps too. Any others I’m missing? https://primal.net/home
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AI sycophancy is a HUGE problem, right up there with the ongoing 10% hallucination rate the models see. It’s a real issue. https://loops.video/v/eQ6slkEree
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This is getting worse by the month. Space debris is a real challenge for our satellites. It’s wild to think about a ‘Kessler syndrome’ tipping point. There needs to be as much work put into fixing this as there is by billionaire-funded companies getting material into space. #SpaceDebris spectrum.ieee.org/kessler-s…
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This is precisely correct.
“The difference from corporate social media comes down to incentive structures. Platforms designed around narcissism & parasocial relationships produce content optimized for engagement. A federated network w/ no central owner produces something closer to actual knowledge-sharing, because nobody profits from making it addictive.”
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Journalists, stop with the “format wars” headlines for Bluesky vs. Mastodon! 🤦♀️ This isn’t zero-sum; when one wins, both benefit. It’s also the wrong question entirely. Twitter was already broken before it became ‘X,’ remember? #OpenSocialWeb
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Survival of the funniest.
“However, many scientists believe that humour is far more widespread amongst the animal kingdom than this…. other researchers have noted that dolphins appear to produce sounds of joy while they are play-fighting, and elephants trumpet in excitement when playing. Some parrots have been known to tease other animals for fun, for example by whistling at and confusing the family dog.
There’s even evidence that rats enjoy a good laugh. For the last decade or so, Jeffrey Burgdorf, research associate professor at Northwestern University in the US, has been tickling rats for a living. When the rats are tickled, they squeak joyfully in a high-pitched noise similar to a giggle.”
