With previous Rexit’s like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.
What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?
With previous Rexit’s like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.
What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?
I get the sentiment, but I feel that the majority, if not all of those benefits can be achieved by a floss threaded forum server application and companion client applications. So long as the software’s design objectives includes content ownership and portability, you could bail to another instance with all your stuff and re-share it or not as you see fit.
As much as I understand the goals of federation, it introduces many, many, intractable problems with efficiency, privacy, security, moderation, and ease administration in exchange for openness benefits that can likely or definitely be attained in other ways.
I believe that the idea of federation is not fundamentally bad, per se, but seems to have had a hype wave at a really opportune time, that made it the forerunner among the solutions to lock-in being discussed at the time. Plenty of other solutions seemed just as valid, but they lacked newness and novelty that made them less hyped when Reddit alternatives were being heavily discussed.
I think user friction without federation will always result in too much lock-in. Federation is our only chance to actually defeat the network effect and allow new platforms/instances to actually have a fighting chance at competing when they are better.
That could be true. People do seem to tend to tolerate slow declines in platform quality surprisingly long before jumping to available alternatives. I think that’s at least in part due to that ‘critical mass’ effect described elsewhere in this conversation that makes people prefer to stay where they believe everyone else is.
If federation does end up being the only solution that pans out, I hope to see additional approaches beyond ActivityPub. As capable as it is, its design seems to confound any implementations of private communications or revocation of access at many levels where it would be very useful and empowering to admins, moderators, and regular users alike.
I would love to see a federation model where each user has an encrypted profile and content in their own archive that they manage and/or have stored somewhere for them, which they can then use to join servers and choose what data from their profile they share with who else on that server, as well as participate in server local and federated public channels, as well as private data exchanges facilitated but not readable by the server or federated network of servers you have a user account signed up.
I’m not sure it could promise revocation for all data on servers of unknown configuration, but could accommodate info that is facilitated by but not readable by any of the participating servers. Posts in public areas would have and require much lower revocation/deletion assurances, but could still have them in a manner at least as robust as ActivityPub.
I’ve been watching the space as time permits and am interested in a lot of the amazing things people make for free for the ‘love of the game’!
This sounds like more work/requirements/issues placed on the casual users, it won’t work, people are too lazy. You have to lean into the 90%/9%/1% rule and let the instance admins and community moderators handle everything for the casual users.
You’re right though, it doesn’t need to be ActivityPub. However no one says a platform can’t support multiple federation protocols at the same time, at least while a transition is ongoing.