In follow-up to the issues I outlined in the Mastodon versus Fediverse discussion, here I want to address an even broader, more urgent topic that I have been trying to put to attention for some time. What I find the most intriguing and challenging - and the general objective that SocialHub was created for - is not so much the individual choices of a FOSS project, but rather: "How to keep things moving and ensure Fediverse evolves in a healthy and steady way?" Whatever you think of Signal m...

We must find a way to empower this community or in some years, sooner or later, the Fediverse as we know it now will be replaced with the next-shiny-thing, and the cycle starts all over again. There is a “Tragedy of the Commons” that applies to Fediverse just as well, that we must overcome.

To me the discussion is not whether Fediverse will be for the masses as alternative to toxic social media molochs, or just for a niche group of people that is able to uphold its unique culture. To me this discussion is about whether Fediverse has a good chance to survive in the long run. It revolves about long-term feasibility of the things we are all passionately working on.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
    2·
    4 years ago

    I’m all for discovering better modes of interaction and fixing issues seen in commercial platforms due to perverse incentives used to build those platforms. That said, I think it’s also important to acknowledge what Fediverse has already achieved, and that it is a thriving and growing community right now. We can discuss the current limitations and problems while being optimistic about the future.

    As I’ve pointed out earlier, I think there is a natural mechanism that encourages interoperability and we’re already seeing different platforms strive to become compatible at least to some extent. So, I don’t think there’s a real danger of Fediverse splintering.

    At the same time, trying out new things does work best within a context of a particular platform. So, what Mastodon is doing with different extensions on ActivityPub is a reasonable way to experiment in my opinion. If these end up being generally useful then they can be added to the W3C spec eventually. My experience is that it’s typically much easier to identify use cases through usage, so you need a working platform with users on it in order to see how to improve things in a meaningful way.