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Should mobile phone companies provide a fediverse account to each customer?

#EvanPoll #poll

  • Strong yes (7%, 51 votes)
  • Qualified yes (16%, 109 votes)
  • Qualified no (27%, 182 votes)
  • Strong no (49%, 333 votes)
675 voters. Poll end: 11 months ago

in reply to Evan Prodromou

Wow, surprising results.

I'm a strong yes. First, I think any way that we can get more people on the fediverse is good. The more people that are here, the more likelihood that you can connect to people you care about on an open social network.

It's not my problem to make business cases for mobile phone service providers, but I think there's a chance to shift their service more to the centre of their customers' attention.

in reply to Evan Prodromou

asking mobile providers to give a fediverse account automatically seems pretty arbitrary. Why should I want them to do it anymore than my grocery store along with a loyalty card? Or my bank? Or the electric utility?

Something like the post office or my local municipality would make more sense to me.

Not that my cell telco shouldn't do this, but I don't see the value prop for either cell subscribers or the company themselves.

in reply to Lee Fife - old account

@colo_lee Good question! I think a mobile phone service provider usually handles Internet service for customers, so they're more aligned with a fediverse account. Many ISPs give free email addresses to customers, which feels analogous.

But, I'm 100% cool with other companies providing fediverse accounts. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

I like post office and municipality, btw!

in reply to Evan Prodromou

I am not at all surprised! I missed your poll but I would be a STRONG NO! I don’t want my mobile phone company having *anything* to do with the services I use.

They lost any trust I had when they were found to be trying to monetize all the data of my web requests. They’ve done other similar stuff. They are surveillance capitalism at its worst. And they keep raising our rates. And they keep wanting government handouts and legislation to block innovation.

STRONG NO!

in reply to Dan York

@danyork Have to agree. Would like to see more people on the fediverse, but I don't want my cell provider to do anything more than provide a connection. They can't be trusted with anything more..
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Evan Prodromou
@brion save it for the 2 Hot 4 Fedi timeline
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Evan Prodromou
@brion @colo_lee I agree. It's something we're working on at the SocialCG; hopefully we'll have some ideas on how to move content when you move your account. This, and more bring-your-own-domain implementations, should help with lock-in.