i realize this might be swinging at the hornet's nest, but i have a genuine question about the Fediverse
cohost.org
something that sort of confuses me about the fediverse, conceptually, is the idea that these disparate apps are cross-compatible in some way. like obvs there's mastodon-compatible platforms (pleroma, akkoma, etc) but in general other fediverse (pixelfed, kbin) are either only partially compatible1 or not compatible at all2. some of this can be easily chalked up to very different modes of interaction3 but if that's the case, why advertise as being part of the fediverse when that's only somewhat true? is it just for Buzzword points? even some sort of shared identity system4 would do a lot to mitigate this! but if i want to use pixelfed, i need a pixelfed account in addition to my mastodon account. how, other than the general "free software" shit, is this better UX than having an instagram account and a twitter account? if anything, it's maybe kinda worse because twitter and instagram at least don't pretend that they're compatible, and i don't have to pick a Twitter or an Instagram, there's just one and i know that it'll be the same one my friends are on. i guess a lot of this comes down to: "no one has done an especially good job explaining why the fediverse is better than centralized solutions." i realize i am somewhat biased as someone who runs a centralized solution, but this has been a problem at least since i first made a mastodon account in 2017, and i sure as shit didn't run a centralized platform then. many of the problems that exist on centralized platforms (content can disappear at any moment, you are at the whims of the admins, etc etc) exist on the fediverse too5, and there aren't a ton of benefits beyond "you can host your own."6 this is not an especially coherent set of thoughts, and it's mostly prompted by me seeing kbin, seeing that it's On The Fediverse, and then learning that it holds zero compatibility with THE primary fediverse application. what's the point of building this beautiful, platform-agnostic platform that's the future of the internet if everything is dependent on their own non-compatible extensions to actually function. ---------------------------------------- 1. pixelfed posts can be viewed and boosted on mastodon but won't display past the first four images 2. afaict, despite kbin being activitypub based, there is no connection between it and any other activitypub software 3. reddit and twitter are not the same, so platforms cloning one are not going to be especially compatible with others 4. hold on while i reinvent openid 5. first person who says "you can move your account to a different instance!" gets to be the first block on this account. you can't. it's a fiction invented by the mastodon project. "you can export your follower list and force everyone to follow you on a new account" is not account migration. until there is any story for migrating content7, claiming that account migration exists is misguided at best and actively deceitful at worst. 6. i used to disparagingly joke when people were being shitheads "ok bud, go make your own website then. it's easy. [https://runyourown.social] however, now that i've done this for over a year, i can not in good faith suggest anyone else do this. i would only wish "running a social media platform" on my worst enemy, and my worst enemies aren't here for me to clown on them. 7. "but i don't care about migrating content," you might say. that's great for you! you are not the only person who exists and many people do care about that.

The core phrase of the blog post: “no one has done an especially good job explaining why the fediverse is better than centralized solutions”.

Feels to me that it’s all growing pains, we WOULD benefit for a federated auth system instead of an account on every service, and we need lots of bug fixing, i just wish all these social media shitstorms had happened a couple years later and not at this point…

  • nachof@feddit.clEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think the interesting issue is why not centralization. There’s tons of better explanations out there, but seriously, just “Elon Musk” is enough to explain why centralization is bad.

    But the post does raise an interesting issue IMHO, and it is the lack of good explanation as to why federation between different platforms with different paradigms. Why federation between different Mastodon servers is obvious. Why federation between Mastodon and Calckey and whatever else is obvious too. Same with federation between different Lemmy instances, or between Lemmy and Kbin. It just makes sense. What is not clear is why we want/need/like federation between Lemmy and Mastodon. Sure, you can post in a Lemmy community from Mastodon, but it sucks. You can follow a Lemmy community from Mastodon, but the experience isn’t great either.

    I do think there are good reasons for this, but I haven’t thought enough about it to articulate it properly. My thinking is that while a Mastodon-like service federating with a Lemmy-like service doesn’t seem to make much sense, Mastodon federating with a Facebook-like service does make sense. And I’m not sure if a Facebook-like thing federating with Lemmy makes sense, but I can definitely imagine something sitting somewhere in the middle between those two. And also, perhaps more importantly, we don’t want to erect artificial walls between the different ActivityPub services. Sure, the Mastodon-Lemmy integration sucks, and maybe it shouldn’t exist, but probably nobody will use it much, exactly because it sucks. But if we add a thing saying “no you can’t do it”, then we start needing to define borders between different services. Is microblogging different from blogging? What about a Facebook-like wall? Or a tumblr-like feed? Are those different enough from each other to be different services? Who wants to be the one defining those borders? I think the current solution, where anything is possible and integrations that don’t make sense just don’t happen organically, is the best.

    But still, that is a way more itneresting question than just “why federation”.

  • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I don’t get why we still haven’t figured out that dictatorships are bad.

    Reddit is a content dictatorship, federation democratizes it.

    It’s really just that simple.

  • Kwakigra@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    My simple answer: A centralized body controlling the nature of all traffic on its platform has the power to unilaterally make decisions which benefit the body itself regardless of the needs or desires of the individuals participating on that platform. If there is no centralized body, this is not possible. Because of the multitude of instances and the ability to form barriers between them at will, each community has unprecedented ability to be the platform its users desire it to be.

  • icesentry@lemmyrs.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Considering the current reddit issue, it seems self explanatory why a non centralized solution is better.

  • 0x1C3B00DA@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    This article seems needlessly antagonistic. Lemmy and kbin are new software (kbin has been live for about a month). Of course there are incompatibilities right now. Those will be worked out. Also, I’m not really sure which incompatibilities they’re talking about. Lemmy/Kbin posts show up and can be replied to on other fediverse services. you can even create a post in a lemmy community from a microblog acct.

    A key thing to remember is that the entire fediverse is built by hobbyists. Gargron and mastodon did a bunch of marketing to get grants/donations but the rest of the fediverse is built by individual people in their free time. Fixing these issues will take much longer than a corporate network would take.

    Sidenote: There is no primary fediverse application. I know they meant mastodon because its the most well known but that’s happenstance and bad journalism. Mastodon wasn’t the first fediverse application and I think lemmy/kbin will outgrow it soon.

    EDIT: To address OPs callout:

    no one has done an especially good job explaining why the fediverse is better than centralized solutions

    This feels like the author is ignoring a lot of writing about this. The main argument is its better because you’re not beholden to someone else’s interests, especially corporate interests that will never be aligned with the average user. (See reddit debacle)

  • Leraje@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    ‘Better’ is relative. To me its better because no one person or group owns or controls the software. There’s no central authority. Don’t like the instance you’re on? Just move to another. Cant find an instance you like? Host your own. Don’t like the path the developers are taking? Fork the code. As long as the very core remains standard (ActivityPub), all possibilities are on.

    There needs to be a return to being patient. Most fedi software is not beyond beta yet. They will develop and they will mature but right now the fediverse is a toddler learning to walk. There are issues but with time they’ll get addressed. We’ve all got so addicted to shiny cool apps and services we’ve become prepared to sacrifice our privacy, our choices and our reason at the altar of a quick dopamine hit.

    There’s no big money to throw at these issues and therefore no dedicated team. This means solutions come slower. But they will come and they will be motivated by usefulness not profit. The people developing these things have lives and day jobs. Give them time.