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?
IDK I think it works brilliantly.
It prevents the iron grip on users/content like Reddit/Twitter have achieved. Enshitification can be defeated by moving instances, which is way easier when it can be done piecemeal instead of all at once, users can move at will and not even lose their friends and communities. Lemmy.world is less than a third of the Threadiverse, and only like 1% of the Fediverse. Enshitification relies on slowly boiling the frog, but here with federation that would cause a slow bleed of users moving until there’s no one left in your enshitified instance. Finding alternatives is really easy and you’ll already be used to the software since there are other instances with the same software.
If the software tries to enshitify then the code can be forked, instance admins can band together to support the new fork. Or switch to a different platform entirely like PieFed instead of Lemmy. Or even just changing the frontend to Photon or something like that.
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.