Mastodon Breaks Social Network Advertising (and That's Good)

I’ve been online long enough to remember how the internet was before the Eternal September. I also remember being surprised when I first saw an ad online—a banner ad on Yahoo, around 1995 or 1996. Since that time, advertisement dollars became the engine of corporate social networks.

Twitter alone made about $4.5 billion from ad services in 2021, about 89% of its total revenue. The so-called “public town square” is actually a walled garden that persuaded 217 million people to come inside and now sells their attention to the highest bidder.

San Francisco's Mission Street is 30 Mexica Hearts Wide

San Francisco street dimensions often don’t make sense, at least in feet. Many streets in the South of Market, including Mission Street, are 82 feet, 6 inches wide. Other streets in the Western Addition and the Mission District are 68 feet, 9 inches. In a city where any small change to traffic can become a pitched battle, these seemingly-arbitrary street widths show up time and time again.

Municipal Bike Share

Below is the public comment I gave at today’s hearing on municipal bikeshare held by the Government Audit and Oversight Committee meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.