@phipz.com
Researching the Political Economy of Internet (De-)Centralisation | Platforms, Infrastructures, and Interoperability | Doctoral Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk 🌍 https://www.platforce.net // 📬 philipp.riederle(at)oii.ox.ac.uk
A witty write-up on the dependence on how deeply Microsoft Office is culturally ingrained in office work, attempts to move to FLOSS alternatives, and a plea for a paradigm shift towards plain text.
ia.net/topics/trapp...
Great to see startup funding go into interoperable platform projects: a @github.com alternative built on @atproto.com.
As someone sceptical of the loud AI hype train, I enjoyed reading this calm account by an indie developer on LLMs‘ capabilities in software development these days.
cc: possibly related to your work? @robertwgehl.org, @masnick.com, @laurenshof.online, @dustyweb.bsky.social, @ckatzenbach.bsky.social, @gorwa.ca, @ianbrown.tech, @wavesblog.bsky.social, @tkretschmer.bsky.social, @ntnsndr.in, @metagov.bsky.social
9/ This is the first paper of my PhD research at @oii.ox.ac.uk. Feedback very welcome! osf.io/preprints/so...
8/ TL;DR: Interoperability is necessary but insufficient. To deliver on its promises, my paper recommends complete implementation, full account portability, and greater modularity.
7/ This matters because: if we want to understand what interoperability actually does in practice, we need to look beyond the mere economics of network effects and into the messy social dynamics playing out *between* providers.
6/ My paper offers categories of reasons why users switch within the Mastodon network. Those are avenues of provider differentiation (and competition) under interoperability, and each can be the basis of more in-depth empirical research.
5/ Finding 3: Despite technical standardisation, providers are NOT homogeneous. They differentiate on service quality, governance values, operational models, and more. The theoretical fear of homogenisation? Not supported.
4/ Finding 2: Switching is possible but far from frictionless. Mastodon users reported decision paralysis, as all differentiating features are bundled on providers. When only one preference changes, a full switch is necessary, whereby users lose their history and handle.
3/ Finding 1: Interoperability *can* neutralise network effects, but ONLY if fully implemented. Even in Mastodon, ideologically designed for decentralisation, there are deliberate design choices and incomplete implementations that quietly reintroduce the very power dynamics it aims to abolish.
2/ My paper's idea: under interoperability, your social connections stay intact across providers. So, why do users switch providers when lock-in is supposedly gone? I collected a large dataset from one of the few cases where social media interoperability is already practised at scale: #Mastodon.
1/ Interoperability has been called a "supertool" for platform competition (@proffionasm.bsky.social) and "dangerous" by BigTech-funded think tanks. I evaluate three theoretical expectations (two promises, one concern) against empirical reality.
🚨New Preprint 📝👨🎓
Digital Platform #Interoperability – almost unanimously proposed in Economics and Policy literature to counter #BigTech platform power. The EU's Digital Markets Act already mandates it for messengers.
BUT: Empirical evidence so far? Scarce. Let's see what I found. 🧵👇
When a private company controls critical infrastructure and gets the power to influence the course of war: Elon Musk switches off Starlink for Russia.
www.forbes.com/sites/davidh...
We're ready for another term of our "Digital Economic Security Seminar" at @oii.ox.ac.uk and @aalto.fi. We've got 8 exciting sessions lined up around tech geopolitics. Warm invitation to join for fellow researchers! diesl.eu/digital-econ...
Very lucky to be working within such a brilliant community of fellow Internet scholars
This term, featuring @acalcara.bsky.social, @gbeaumier.bsky.social, @aboxiwu.bsky.social, and five more exciting presenters.
The next season of our “Digital Economic Security Seminar” is about to embark - organised by yours truly and Vili Lehdonvirta. Check out our schedule and sign up here: diesl.eu/digital-econ...
The new 🇩🇪German Coalition just made an explicit commitment to #EuroStack - the plan for digital strategic autonomy supported by European industry which doesn’t rely on a Brussels fund showering taxpayer money on projects w no commercial prospects, that no one wants - like #AI_factories. Big deal.
German government's "Centre for Digital Sovereignty" (ZenDIS) develops open source collaboration suite "openDesk" by bundling multiple great OSS projects - and deploys into public administration. Exciting! @sovereign.tech
Thanks for having me, @rocher.lc!
The municipality of Aarhus in Denmark moved its cloud hosting from a US provider (Microsoft Azure) to German Hetzner. This brings data within EU borders, ensuring data protection and digital sovereignty. Most surprisingly, it even reduced costs by 2/3. itk.aarhus.dk/nyheder/proj...
Terrific news! Many congratulations and wishing you a great start!
I have never seen anything as disgusting as that. Genuinely no words.
If it’s technically possible, it will inevitably be abused in illegitimate ways. A clear NO to encryption backdoors and chat control.
Challenging @timbl.bsky.social's view that internet concentration has a technical fix. The issue is network economics & social institutions. SOLID/EWADA has great use cases (e.g., healthcare) but can’t decentralise multi-sided platforms. @oxmartinschool.bsky.social
The rise of a fascist party in Germany - a repetition of history? This page by @michaelkreil.bsky.social illustrates the chilling similarities. datajournal.org/schon-wieder/
Fantastic update of @beeper.com iOS and Desktop! Wouldn't want to miss the luxury anymore of using only one chat app for all the networks. Living the dream of client-side #interoperability based on @matrix.org.
blog.beeper.com/2025/02/24/t...
My doctoral research at @oii.ox.ac.uk deals with the Political Economy of Internet (De-)Centralisation. In particular, the governance (and power implications) of internet platforms. Bluesky (alongside the Fediverse/Mastodon) are both quite interesting cases I look at.