I do truly believe fediverse is the future. I also like it because it's a bit closer conceptually to old-school forums, each hosted as its own server. With a difference here of added convenience of inter-connectibility. It's also so cool to be the early adopter with the tech still a bit rough around the edges.
Also don't let media tell you that something is dead.
If people are using it, it's not dead.
If you're getting value out of it, it's not dead.
Something doesn't need to have half the world using it to not be dead.
This is such a nice mentality to have. Believing in the value of things of your own accord also helps you become resistant to marketing tactics such as planned obsolescence! Instead of being told that something is of no worth anymore and keeping on buying the latest things, you end up appreciating the things you have for what they're worth, leading to a more sustainable outlook of life and more conscientious consumption.
Yup, you can definitely extend this way past social media. Whatever it is, if it works for you, don't let anyone tell you that it shouldn't. It's too easy to get swept up in opinions of the masses. I like quiet spaces. You hear much more there.
I’ve only been here a few days, but I genuinely think the Fediverse is the future of social media. It’s not yet polished, but the potential of it all was an epiphany when I finally understood it. I’d forgotten what the real Internet was.
It was about two years ago that Matrix finally stuck for me, and while I actually tried using Mastodon, I don't like following people. Hashtags help, but it's not the same as a community.
For the topics I want to engage in, the critical mass is already here.
I would not agree with the general statement about FOSS. Some commercial products absolutely do edge out the free ones. And I am not sure it is only the limited funding, seeing the usability issues with Linux. I think Linus Tech Tips video series was a nice insight.
But for social platforms I do not even see a different way. FOSS is a must, especially with the inherent bias of algorithms. Commercial third party clients still could be beneficial.
How many of those commercial products are more than 1/2 FOSS though.
Really what we are talking about is last mile code really, yes that can cost money but I think its on the way, I remember when linux was unusable as a desktop.
I said it 20 years ago and I still believe it now, its not possible to monetize a social network to be both profitable and vibrant. Social networks are like public transit, at best you can hope to break even, maintaining the commons is just part of being in this world. We can't sit around and expect others to do it for us.
I'm about utility. Online social engagement is a need. People who can't connect need a way to connect. This is a public utility, a social service. It needs to be streamlined, free, and as open as possible to anyone who wishes to participate.
It is a human right to connect. We shouldn't hide it beind any paywall, ad, company, entity or outside will. People have a right to enter the room, speak and listen without being attacked by anything.
About Linux, I feel Con Kolivas, a former Linux kernel dev said is very accurate. There could be a bug in the kernel that causes desktop use case go to a crawl or freeze can be ignored for years, but Oracle reports there is a bug in the server usecase that causes a 0.5% of performance lost once per month and the same day it will be fixed.
Enterprise use simply eclipse the focus of the devs to regular people use. Which just only highlights even more why the desktop experience improved so rapidly when Valve decided they wanted Linux for gaming. Simply there wasn't anyone that cared for the end user experience and wasn't running their own fork (yes, I am talking about Google).
Hosting costs are going to bite everyone in the ass. That's the opportunity for corporations to step in and slowly fuck things up. So right now, if you look at the instances, there are a lot of topic overlap, like gaming. Now imagine down the road that say, Steam hosts their own gaming instance. People flock to it as a centralized discussion opportunity. We could easily end up back to a very corporate controlled situation.
I'm okay with the existence of the corporate run server in your example so long as alternatives remain available and that corporate server can't start requesting removal of "competition."
Some amount of centralization isn't bad, so long as people can still choose to be elsewhere.
This could very well be the future. Especially considering certain big tech companies (like Meta) are already trying to make their own implementations of ActivityPub. However, people are discussing ways to possibly mitigate this, like multireddits.
That communities, and unfortunately whole instances might turn to shit is more of a given. The big advantage is the switch would be a lot smoother. If reddit was a gargantuan instance, the loss would still be catastrophic, however the ecosystem would remain in tact. That is the user interface, the third party apps and so on. Right now everything is completely leveled and you need to start from scratch.
I really do believe the fediverse is the future. We've gone from:
Traditional Forums, to the early days of twitter/reddit "the golden days" to present day money driven social media platforms. I really do believe the future is a platform like the fediverse where ultimately. It sounds far more sustainable.
It's nice to have multiple communities not just one dominant commuity like reddit has. It means that those who don't agree with a community that might be power abusing can find an alternate one on a different instance.
I think communities could have a responsibility to go cross-instance and work with other similar communities so the user can sub to multiple ones and still get as much content as they would on reddit. It really does feel like the future of the internet.
I would really like one that takes away the power from big business. Internet always felt wonderful in it's hayday being untouched by corporations.
I would really like to restore and preserve that feeling but those days may well be over if things don't change.
What I am not understanding is the concept of logging in another server. I created an account on feddit.it, can I use this account to login in a mastodon website? Or does it work the other way around, with me just using the feddit.it website (like I'm doing right now) to consume content from other instances? With the second option, if feddit.it goes down, my account is done, right?
based on the same concepts as email, you pick your provider (instance) and you can get messages from anyone using a provider supporting the protocol. The naming system is similar @<username>@instance and !<community>@instance