Artists have finally had enough with Meta’s predatory AI policies, but Meta’s loss is Cara’s gain. An artist-run, anti-AI social platform, Cara has grown from 40,000 to 650,000 users within the last week, catapulting it to the top of the App Store charts.

Instagram is a necessity for many artists, who use the platform to promote their work and solicit paying clients. But Meta is using public posts to train its generative AI systems, and only European users can opt out, since they’re protected by GDPR laws. Generative AI has become so front-and-center on Meta’s apps that artists reached their breaking point

  • Tiger Jerusalem@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    212
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    People talking about pixelfed are missing a key point: Cara is super easy to find and join. You go, type your email or login with your google account and that’s it. You don’t even have to remember a password. Nobody wants to find a server, apply to join, hope to get accepted, then somehow find all other artists like you.

    Also, it looks good. Like, really good. That’s a thing that grab the attention of artists.

    • Lem453@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      99
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      This right here. I tried to join Mastodon today.

      Download the most recommended app, Moshidon

      Open app and get asked which instance i want to join. There are no suggestions.

      Do a search for instances and pick one, go to the website and register with email and password. Requires email confirmation. Still waiting on the email confirmation link, 4 hrs later and 2 resends.

      Literally haven’t been able to sign up yet.

      Even if it had worked, the workflow would have been to change back to the app, type out the instance then re-login.

      I’m not sure how anyone expects anyone other than the most hardcore to sign up for these services. Maybe that’s the point but if the point is to grow the user sign up process to significant overall

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        42
        ·
        6 months ago

        Biggest problems I have had with Mastodon are the fact that:

        1. The app I wanted to use didn’t even recognize the instance I signed up for and…

        2. I had to wait nearly a month and a half before being able to actuallyuse my account and access Mastodon because I joined an instance where they review people signing up or something similar.

        I definitely see the appeal of a find the site, sign up, and you’re done services over the fediverse join an instance and pray service.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        26
        arrow-down
        14
        ·
        6 months ago

        If you just used the Official app, they have a simplified sign-up procedure. Dug your own grave there.

        • Tiger Jerusalem@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          Thats not fair, since everyone says the main app suck and you’ll have a better experience with Moshidon. This is true if you’re already there, but the comment makes it clear that it still lacks for newbies.

          • ekZepp@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            I use the official app, is not incredible but do his job.

            btw. just use the official (or the web site) x sign in, is not like you can’t use the credentials elsewhere.

          • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            9
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            Never heard of Moshidon, so clearly not everyone. Why would anyone try to register via a non-official app first (especially for a procedure like signin-up) is beyond me. Some apps are better than others, but always start with the official one and then, if it lacks something, look for something else. This applies not only for mastodon, but for everything. Basic stuff…

            • Jayjader@jlai.lu
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              6 months ago

              Why would anyone try to register via a non-official app first (especially for a procedure like signin-up) is beyond me.

              You may or may not have heard this before, but the app is not the instance is not the platform. I registered both my Mastodon account and this Lemmy account via their respective instance websites. I used mastodon in the browser for literally over a year before installing an app for it on my phone.

              Apps are alternative front-ends to the fediverse, even “official” ones.

              “Basic stuff” is very weird to read for me when many of the internet services I have accounts for don’t have apps - and I would rather they never make an app for it. My electricity bills, my hosting costs, my home internet, all are done through web pages that I can access from any internet-connected device, unlike an app.

              Not to mention I appreciate being able to type things on a bigger screen and physical keyboard when I register for things.

              Lastly, it is much easier for me to deal with a sloppily made website than a sloppily made app. I can use extensions, and if need be can open up the network tab to see if the registration request was accepted or not before the website malfunctioned on my end.

              • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                6 months ago

                You assumed I don’t do this. Of course, number 1 place I go to if I want to sign up, is the website.

                I was saying that it’s weird to blame Mastodon for “complex sign-up”, when you’re using a “3rd-party” tool to do so. That’s completely down to the app.

                I’ve never, ever signed up to something via an unofficial app.

                • Jayjader@jlai.lu
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  6 months ago

                  I was saying that it’s weird to blame Mastodon for “complex sign-up”, when you’re using a “3rd-party” tool to do so. That’s completely down to the app.

                  Ah, I understand now. Thanks for the correction.

            • srecko@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              6 months ago

              Can you point me to the email official app? Or at least official site that explains how to register an email? Fediverse tends to think that it should be like email, sure it needs some getting used to , but the beauty is that defaults aren’t really necessary.

    • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      63
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      6 months ago

      They’re just gonna have to leave whenever Cara makes some dumb decision. It’s the capitalist app cycle.

      • NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        22
        ·
        6 months ago

        Whether it’s “capitalist” or not doesn’t matter. You could have government owned/created apps that make dumb decisions as well.

        At least with capitalism you have the option to go somewhere else when a dumb decision is made.

        • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          22
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          6 months ago

          Most capitalist apps dont allow you to fork the code.

          Lemmy, for example, is not owned by anyone and can altered if the main lemmy devs did something dumb.

          Of course you already know this, its why you are here. You fled capitalism (Reddit) like the rest of us.

          • NotAnotherLemmyUser@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            10
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            I think you’re confusing the word “corporate” with “capitalism”, they are not the same.

            Edit: If you swap the word “capitalist” with “corporate” I completely agree with you.

          • Hotmailer@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            15
            ·
            6 months ago

            No one flees capitalism. Stop talking like a Marxist. It’s not possible to have communism in any guise without it collapsing. Exchanging goods and services for money incentives people to produce more. What you’re talking about is corporate greed

            • Glytch@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              9
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              6 months ago

              Exchanging goods and services for money incentives(sic) people to produce more.

              What you’re describing here is commerce, which existed looong before capitalism. What you describe as “corporate greed” is capitalism

              • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                7
                ·
                6 months ago

                When capitalists say nobody would work under communism, they really mean that capitalists would never work under communism.

                • Hotmailer@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  6 months ago

                  But communism is a replacement for capitalism, just like capitalism replaced feudalism. It’s something that will come with time and technology, not something that can be forced to happen.

    • simple@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Aside from that, people spamming about Pixelfed are missing the point that this is also a deviantart alternative. The landing page showing tons of art you might be interested in is great.

      Also Pixelfed would straight up share their images to other servers that might allow web scraping bots which is part of the reason they made this website.

    • XNX@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      6 months ago

      Pixelfed isn’t even in the App Store and isn’t geared towards artists. Cara has specific features for artists including finding jobs

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      A decentralized system with cryptographic identities wouldn’t even require that. All these rituals about “dragging your mouse around for 2 minutes” and overloaded UIs, like in Retroshare and Freenet, were simply aimed at people who felt more comfortable, not less, seeing them.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          6 months ago

          A few solutions:

          1. Federated identity services. Like old Skype had identity service as its only centralized part, one can make the same thing, but federated. Would require registration and finding one just like the comment I was answering to complains.

          2. F2F and trust elements - people can trust each other via QR codes or something, with 1 trusted peer beating any number of untrusted peers.

          3. Reputation system elements (like Kad network has), which is not enough a protection, but makes them more expensive.

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              6 months ago

              Yes. I meant specifically something like old Skype authentication servers, sharing identities via ActivityPub. So that one person is registered on one server, another on another server, but they’ll both find each other in contact directory and will be able to communicate.

              But that’s only for contact info, the actual content of the network should be decentralized and not stored on federated servers. Again, like old Skype (in the point of division between what’s centralized and what’s not).