I wrote more about how it works here if you're curious: https://overreacted.io/a-social-filesystem/
How, in spite of having no data on what it would be like, people are so confident that leaving shared open connected mediums behind is the only way to go is such a mystery to me.
The radio station I'm on just played a modem tone, Mountain Chill Radio. But I was already gearing up to write what an amazing era this has been, how incredible a rise it has been that we can connect & talk, with so many people. My dialtone travels so much further & that is glorious. I have no idea, feel like I would have no chance to build a good private network for myself, that my life would stagnante and closed, if I had to build my networks myself in private, smuggling the light of my soul to others rather than being able to let it out.
I am happy to be online. I am proud of my "data", my voice, my app records. There's some less pleasant less shiny corners! But it is mad incredible that I get to do this live, that I get to have so many edges of connection and serendipity. People provide the most wild interesting comments and suggestions and topics, ongoingly. I benefit so much from them sharing their lives.
I spiritually believe deeply that we have our light to share with the universe. To turn your nose up at sharing, to renounce & see only evil, to let the Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, this spectre of the closed/bad/no-good controlling systems shape our thinking here is a pandora's box: I say you are shutting the door right as hope is finally trying to get out.