cross-posted from: https://hachyderm.io/users/maegul/statuses/111820598712013429

Is decentralised federated social media over engineered?

Can’t get this brain fart out of my head.

What would the simplest, FOSS, alternative look like and would it be worth it?

Quick thoughts:

* FOSS platforms intended to be big single servers, but dedicated to …
* Shared/Single Sign On
* Easy cross posting
* Enabling and building universal Multi-platform clients.
* Unlike email, supporting small servers

No duplication/federation/protocol required, just software.

#fediverse
@fediverse

  • Max-PEnglish
    13•10 months ago

    I wouldn’t be on Lemmy if it wasn’t federated.

    Why? Because I don’t want to be trapped into another ecosystem that will do a Twitter/Reddit when it gets big enough. Reddit clones are plentiful, but they’re all fragmented in the user base. At least with Lemmy that doesn’t matter, I can use any community from my home instance.

    ActivityPub in itself really isn’t that bad, there’s a lot more that goes into the platform as a whole. And it’s also a good choice because it’s a standard protocol that everyone agrees on. Is it perfect? Probably not. But it works good enough, and we now have Lemmy alternatives in the form of Sublinks and K/Mbin. There’s also a decent chunk of toy ActivityPub projects out there as well.

    I can still be trapped in a dying ecosystem but that’s true of every site and at least I have the option of taking my data and converting it to another software if I want to.

    • maegul (he/they)OPEnglish
      -1•10 months ago

      And it’s also a good choice because it’s a standard protocol that everyone agrees on.

      Not sure how true this is in practice. See eg: https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/111812820133158591 And there’s of course BlueSky and ATProto that may alter that truth drastically (we’ll see)

      Otherwise, I hear you. Thing is I’m aiming for something in the middle. If the platforms are all FOSS and commit to easy movement/migration features (which the fediverse sucks at to be fair) as well as good quality aggregators (which the fediverse also sucks at), then maybe your concerns aren’t a fatal possibility?

      Also, and I do apoligise for making this a tad personal … it seems you’re on an instance that’s mostly for you or small group of friends (which is awesome! How’s it going?) … which is a level of enjoyment of what the fediverse offers beyond most people and even beyond what many capable of doing so would want to do for their social media. Meeting things in the middle is also about bringing better social media to more people, which could naturally deprive the technically capable of their abilities to be flexible with their needs (though in a way BlueSky’s promise is kinda to do both, if it succeeds).