The developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, and Sup, open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, respectively, is now raising funds on Kickstarter to fuel the apps’ further development.

The trio is part of the growing open social web, also known as the fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by X alternative Mastodon. The latter saw increased signups and use after the company formerly known as Twitter sold to Elon Musk in October 2022 and during the X exodus that followed the U.S. presidential election.

In the months and years following that sale, open source and decentralized apps like Mastodon and Bluesky (which uses the newer AT Protocol), have continued to grow their user bases, as people sought alternatives to centralized social media apps controlled by billionaires like Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

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Edit: Link to the kickstarter

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[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm trying to convince mine to get on Signal

[–] RQG@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

I just did convince my family and all close friends to move to signal.

[+] Suoko@feddit.it -10 points 2 days ago (3 children)

RCS could be also an option. Now mostly backed by google but it can be unplugged whenever we want

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not going to use a proprietary protocol to chat through Google's (Jibe) servers running proprietary software. Even if the messages are e2ee, Google can still collect metadata. Google never provides anything for free and collection of data is kinda their thing.

[–] Scrollone@feddit.it 7 points 2 days ago

Also, Google will kill RCS sooner or later.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago

yeahhh nah

[–] Matombo@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

afaik not really, only cell phone companies can apply to join the rcs federation and all of them just outsourced it to google and apple so it under control of just 2 companies.

so no, rcs is not an open standard.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The number of cell phone companies is so high nowadays that it could be compared to the number of fediverse instances. They would just need a prepackaged docker to set it all up and they would just do it. No need for eternal history of messages and media, they could manage it a la WhatsApp.

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I worked for years in one of the biggest in telecom companies in Europe. They supported RCS for about 2 years, before they stopped. I tried to restart the project, but there was no interest. It is viewed as a waste of money since customers already use Google Messages, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and WhatsApp.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So Snapchat is lossinh money with its service? I don't think so

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think you may have misunderstood what I wrote.

Snapchat makes money through showing you ads. RCS is something very different. It is not social media. RCS has no ads in the same way that SMS has no ads.

Telecom providers have to spend money to support RCS. Telecom providers don't want to spend money on RCS if it's not going to earn them money. They believe RCS is not going to earn them money because the customers aren't interested. The customers aren't interested because they can already chat with each other through social media and chat apps.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So google is just loosing money with their Jibe servers? There is no ads there. I guess they can make money with RCS business accounts if they wanted.

But let's get back to the fediverse question, google manages RCS by providing jibe servers for mobile operators right? Because they were lazy to .manage it (and they're not that techy when it comes to servers probably, they're good with antenna and similar mostly) Can't anyone offer a jibe server for any mobile operator? Google is not a global mobile provider at all. What secret law is behind RCS?

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Google is not making a profit from RCS, but they don't have to be loosing money either. I don't know the price Google is charging telecom providers. It's either very cheap or for free. That's why many telecom providers choose Google's solution. I believe that Google is treating it as an investment. I assume that Google plan to charge more in the future or that they want data from the users. Maybe both.

Telecom providers know how to do all of this themselves, but it's going to cost more money than using Google's solution. Someone else can absolutely start providing RCS to telecom providers but they will have a hard time trying to sell it to telecom providers if they're not cheaper than Google.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Is the RCS technology fully open source? If yes it could be nice to try to find a fediverse - friendly mobile operator willing to create a bridge...

[–] perfectly_boiled_pizza@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

It's not open source

[–] Matombo@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

still more work then just letting google handle it for them, so wont happen