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