Fediverse

the difference is the level of control

X and Facebook are closed source, so you can't review them and they could be hiding stuff in their code or just do things people don't like and we can't revert

they also control the servers and don't let you self host, so they can make bad admin decisions and there's nothing we can do

and they also horde the content so you can't get it from somewhere else, which means you can't just leave and use a different platform (not easily at least)

over here if you don't like the devs then you don't need to donate to them, you don't need to use their instance, or we can fork their code, or even use an alternative (like Mbin vs Lemmy)

I think in terms of fedi, it's fine. I mean plenty of people think Linus Torvold is an Ass, but we all love Linux for what it is.

It's a fair point. But then in the case of a piece of (literal) art created by a computer program, who was the artist if not the programmer? In legal terms software is a work of creativity like any other.

Perhaps the important factor is how many people are involved. To be art, there has to be a single artist.