Episode Details

Ditto.pub is live! MK Fain, co-founder of Soapbox Technology and one of the engineers behind Ditto, joins Heather Larson to pull back the curtain on what Ditto is, where it came from, and where it is going. This is not a Twitter alternative. It is not another app asking you to learn a new protocol. It is the fun, customizable, personality-driven internet that most people stopped believing was still possible. (In full disclosure, Heather works for M.K. at Soapbox).

The new Ditto strips out the Twitter-style text notes by default. What you see when you arrive is video, photos, music, and creative content. This was a deliberate choice. MK makes the case that Nostr has done itself a disservice by producing seventeen Twitter clones. Ditto is done with that. If you're sick of mainstream platforms but have never found an alternative worth staying on, Ditto is for you.

Remember MySpace? Custom themes, custom fonts, the ability to upload a photo and turn it into a profile background, avatar frames, Blinkies, all of it. It's BACK! And we're just getting started. The direction MK is pointing toward is a future where the Edit in Shakespeare button on Ditto means users can build any feature they want themselves rather than waiting for the dev team to add it.

On AI: M.K. breaks down what open source actually means for models. Training data, weights, and the ability to run it locally are three separate bars. Something can be fully open and still require a billion-dollar data center to run. The distinction between open models and open tools matters. Shakespeare works with any model, open or closed, and the tool itself is open so you can see exactly what it is doing.

Get on Ditto at ditto.pub. Make it yours.

Chapters

00:01 Intro and M.K. Fain Background

00:40 Soapbox History: Fediverse, Mostr Bridge, and the Move to Nostr

02:52 Spinster, Hen House, and Building Feminist Spaces Online

05:00 The Original Ditto: Bridging Fediverse and Nostr

06:11 Why the Old Ditto Did Not Work

06:29 Ditto 2: Built for Everyone

08:50 Bringing Whimsy Back: MySpace Energy and Custom Themes

12:02 The Indie Web, Blinkies, NeoCities, and Vibe Coding

14:23 Ditto Gives You Indie Web Freedom Without Needing to Code

17:25 Why People Are Skeptical of Free Open Platforms

18:27 What Open Source AI Actually Means: Weights, Data, and Local Models

20:06 Anthropic Said No to the Pentagon

20:19 Should You Learn to Code in 2026?

24:10 Kids Understand Ditto Immediately

25:41 The Knitting Analogy: Code for the Love of It or Do Not Bother

28:59 Knowing What to Prompt Is the New Skill

31:26 Early User Feedback on Ditto 2

32:39 The Edit in Shakespeare Button and What It Means for the Future

33:59 Nostr Is Not a Twitter Alternative and Ditto Is Done Pretending It Is

35:20 The New Ditto Landing Page: No Notes, Just the Good Stuff

37:30 TikTok: Great Algorithm, Dystopian Everything Else

41:25 Do Not Say Nostr in the Marketing

43:06 Zapvertising and Why People Still Do Not Get It

45:14 The Bitcoin and Zaps Strategy: Wait Until They Want to Buy Something

46:15 In-Game Currency and Why Zaps Win

48:48 Soapbox Live Teaser and Where to Find Ditto

Links

Ditto: https://ditto.pub

Soapbox Technology: https://soapbox.pub

Shakespeare AI Builder: https://shakespeare.diy

Listen on Fountain: https://fountain.fm