Lately I've been noticing a lot of situations where people have bright eyes about the future of a thing, and then immediately become excessively pessimistic about the thing when it doesn't meet their own timeline for success. It's a really interesting thing to think about for me, because I've been in this exact same situation where I had a vision for a thing someone else was doing, and when that vision didn't come to fruition when I wanted it to I'd get really critical about the thing.
I've seen it in the Forza community where people are blaming Turn 10 for the shitty launch of Forza Motorsport 2023 and its continued state of dysfunctionality.
I've seen it in young Sask NDP members who joined the party to push it left, realized that organized government works at a glacial pace and nothing they do will change that, and then not only stop supporting the party but also decide not to vote for them, either.
And now I've seen it on Cohost, a site that has been accessible to the public for just over a year, where people had this idea that Cohost was different because it was made by socialist queers, only to realize that it's not implementing basic accessibility features on a timeline people expected.
The common problem in each scenario is the inherent opaque nature of being on the outside looking in. When humans view a thing someone else has made, it's easy to notice the faults in the thing and point them out, but it's much harder for us to understand why those faults even exist in the first place.
A big reason why people are mad at Turn 10 about the new Forza game being broken is because they don't know that Turn 10 actually had a functional prototype of the game a couple years back, but Microsoft told them to scrap it entirely and just make another clone of Motorsport 7 - which itself was a clone of Motorsport 6, which itself was a clone of Motorsport 5. We could have had a functional game with minimal glitches at release if Turn 10 were allowed to continue with their prototype, but now Turn 10 is trying to play catch-up because their deadline was effectively cut in half as a result of Microsoft's decision.
A big reason young Sask NDP members join the SNDP for a few years and then burnout and leave is because they don't really understand how you're supposed to do politics in a political party. It's not a sprint where you run full-tilt for a few hundred yards, because you're just gonna burn yourself out going nowhere; it's a marathon, you have to pace yourself and be welcoming of disappointment and defeat while continuously working for decades to make other delegates aware and educated on your issues and be able to have them support the change you want.
And likewise, a big reason some people on Cohost are becoming disillusioned with Cohost and ASSC is because they came in here expecting perfect communication and transparency, perfect implementation of key features including more accessibility, and are somehow shocked they didn't get what they want in Cohost's first year of public access.
like, i want to be very clear here: im a disability activist. i'm a disability advocate within a progressive political party that has enough voters to get into a majority government. so i know how disappointing it can be to see Cohost miss out on key accessibility features other sites have implemented.
but also, as mentioned above, this site didn't even exist in the state it's in now a couple years ago. It was exceedingly basic, without any accessibility features at all and barely even functional. The fact that this site is running with only the occasional hiccup now is already kind of nuts.
This is why being an advocate within a problematic system sucks so hard. Having to accept that your priorities are not other people's priorities is a bitter fucking pill to swallow, and I have to swallow that pill every fucking day for the rest of my life. But I'm gonna swallow that fucking pill because eventually, people in the future won't have to swallow the same pills i do.
Shit takes time. It's upsetting to not have your way when you want it, even when you think you're being merciful with your personal deadlines. Hearing a liberal say "if you don't vote you get the bad guy" fucking sucks, but it sucks because we know they're right, and it sucks to want to admit that - so some of us refuse to accept it.
Like the people who shout at T10 about Forza, the people who left the SNDP because it wasn't socialist enough fast enough, or the people who canceled their cohost plus subscriptions because ASSC didn't implement their personal key feature on their personal deadlines.
We don't see what's going on with ASSC or T10 or the SNDP because we're on the outside. We're not able to read their minds and know exactly what the situation is. We can at least try, though. It's exhausting to always give somebody the benefit of the doubt and be let down, but I think it's important to recognize when the disappointment is starting to cloud our judgement and poison our vision with assumptions.
I plan on being a lifelong member of the SNDP, and that's going to come with a lot of opportunities to be viciously disappointed time and time again. But if I'm not in that party being an amplifier for disabled people, who will?
Likewise, I want Cohost to become a fantastic primary social media site with innovative features and communities within, and important accessibility features for disabled users. But if we all just stopped giving them money to keep the site going, then where the fuck do we go from here?
My point is this: it's extremely easy to make a lot of big assumptions about why particular features haven't been implemented yet on Cohost; lack of care, lack of priorities, some moral failing or whatever. but all we got are the facts: Cohost is a brand new site built from the ground up by four queer socialist furries - one of which only handles support tickets and moderation and doesn't directly work on site code - and have yet to break even. The key here though, is yet. they emphasized that their vision for Cohost is to create a social media platform that could sustain itself without under-handed bullshit other sites use to generate income like advertisements, selling user data and other shit - and they're not selling the company to let corporate vultures do that, either. If the site goes bust, they're taking it down rather than let corpos come in and start selling all your data without your consent.
Cohost never sold itself on being "the most accessible website for disabled people," or being "the best social media site," or being "the most progressive social media site." But it has three staff members working on its code who are going to be WAY more amicable to the needs of disabled users, they're incalculably fast on the trigger banning bigoted shitheads than any other site on the internet, and they haven't once said they're never going to implement features that make the site more accessible to their users.
Yes, it's disappointing that certain key accessibility features haven't been implemented. being disappointed is normal, wanting better is normal, being angry that yet again our needs aren't being met straight away is normal. But it's also kind of important not to strangle your allies.
The grass in your field is dying in a drought, but the field next to you looks a little bit better. there's people on the other field working to improve it - watering it, adding fertilizer, stuff like that. you go over to that field thinking they might help you out, too. so you go over there and ask for help, and they say they're working on this field first. so you help them out, but improving a field's quality in a drought is taking longer than you want - and this whole time, your own field is dying without any attention at all. do you keep working on this field with the other people and hope they keep their promise to fix yours after they're done here, do you go back to your field and try to fix it yourself, or do you just give up?
the people who give into the Green Grass Fallacy will either go back to their field and work on it themselves and eventually burn out, or they'll give up entirely - the whole time resenting the group of helpers who didn't come to help their field at their immediate request. activism is hard work, it takes time, and it's extremely exhausting. learning to cope with the Green Grass Fallacy can allow us to keep working on that field the other people are working on, so we can then move on to our fields and fix those too.
I have never ever been so moved by a post- oh my gosh ^^'
I'm taking all of this to heart, and I mean it. I'm not one that has complained / thought about complaining about accessibility features on cohost, I'm generally pretty good about being patient and understanding. But, there are many other facets of my life that your story helped me understand. A friend that struggles is still a friend, a project that struggles is still worth your time. Don't just jump ship because things aren't going according to plan. You have to hang in there and give support, even if it looks like a losing battle. Have faith and put forth your best effort, no excuses! ^^
