this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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Fediverse
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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;
- What is the fediverse?
- Fediverse Platforms
- How to run your own community
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@fediverse From my experience I am having two main issues when talking with people about the Fediverse:
@fediverse Again, maybe I was only very unlucky with the instances I chose to let my friends sign up for the Fediverse, but we really need to think on how to make this as effortless as possible for new users. Changing paradigm is not easy, making everyone grasp the underlying concepts of the Fediverse is not easy, increasing adoption is not easy. We can not rely on another Xpocalypse.
I'm interested in discussing more about this.
@RookieNerd @fediverse
Hmm… There is a misconception on what the #Fediverse is and what is the goal, which unfortunately is what the press are telling people.
The Fediverse is about bringing down the walls (silos / walled-garden).
It never had the goal or objective or vision to replace Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Blogspot.
The Fediverse software available today are the materialised ideas of developers who believe in a federated SocialWeb, which by the way, is the original #Web3 (not crypto). It goes all the way back to 2005 (probably earlier, I don't have my notes).
The goal was to get existing silos to open up and federate.
It just that, there are more developers who are excited about it, so we started to see serious projects related to the Fediverse. If I remember correctly, Misskey was not a Fediverse project when it first started. So, one would say Misskey was the first non-federation project that joined the fediverse network.
If these silos don't federate, it's fine too, because there are existing software and instances available.
And it has always been about choice.
If users want to stay with silo #SNS by all means. The fediverse is not here to replace them, the fediverse is here as an option and as a solution to the issues plaguing silo networks (like ads, privacy, content license, to mention a few).
That's what the fediverse is about and always have been to this day. It is never about replacing this and that, or recruiting people to switch over and encourage them to delete their silo SNS accounts. These other things were simply the passion and convictions of the users who migrated and some of the developers who developed fediverse software, it's not part of the fediverse itself.
It's just a protocol. Again, I'll use email here. If you have a server, you can choose to install your own email software. The protocol is there. Various email software are there. OR, you can just use Yandex or Gmail or Zoho and use the custom domain feature (or use their email hosting services).
If Twitter and Facebook implement the protocol, hooray! Mission accomplished. If they don't, that's fine either.
So, yeah, people are hating that Instagram will implement the #ActivityPub protocol and join the #Fediverse network. They have valid reasons and it is understandable. However, the fediverse started to be a #WebStandard protocol to allow federation and bring back the #SocialWeb as it was intended to be.
For us who were there in 2005 already, and when the first Fediverse software and instance came online in 2008, that is still our vision and goal, to bring down the walls of silo SNS.