Looks like it’s for feeds and the fediverse
Well, for one, like the guy says below, it was often said to people as a means to explain how federation works, which immediately failed by way of people not thinking about or knowing how email works, either.
For another, my emails look like emails everywhere, both on source and destination. I don’t have a different character limit or feature set about what I can slap into my emails depending on what client I’m using, and I’m reasonably sure my email looks the same on the other end, no mater what client the recipient is using.
So the back end may work like email (not really, but it may approximate it), but the front end sure as hell doesn’t, so the explanation is more confusing than anything else.
Also, not the part of Mastodon specifically that people didn’t understand, they just tried to log in, were presented with a thousand instances, told choosing which one to use was super important but also that it didn’t matter and they should keep changing instances later, but also that migrating instances was not an easy process, but don’t worry, it’s just like email.
It was a hilarious endless loop of a conversation, like a Monty Python sketch. Or seeing people try to tell normies to use Linux.
For another, my emails look like emails everywhere, both on source and destination. I don’t have a different character limit or feature set about what I can slap into my emails depending on what client I’m using, and I’m reasonably sure my email looks the same on the other end, no mater what client the recipient is using.
This is mostly the case now due to centralized email by a few providers and bountiful bandwidth, but it was certainly not the case 20+ years ago.
Also, not the part of Mastodon specifically that people didn’t understand, they just tried to log in, were presented with a thousand instances, told choosing which one to use was super important but also that it didn’t matter and they should keep changing instances later, but also that migrating instances was not an easy process, but don’t worry, it’s just like email.
People used to do the same with email before google and microsoft dominated email. It’s just that in most cases, your ISP provided you with an email when you first signed up. Switching email provider currently is way more onerous than switching mastodon or lemmy providers. If each ISP nowadays hosten their own say, friendica server and provided you with a login immediately, it would have a similar effect of solving this difficulty of choosing.
It was such a thin sliver of time, and yet it’s still so pungently 2023.
Look, I was there when email was a ISP thing. All emails looked the same everywhere because there was no support for anything but text, so that’s a supremely nerdy nitpick that doesn’t apply to the conversation.
Likewise to your other point. Nobody cares about all the mental gymnastics, the “it’s like email” explanation doesn’t work because no, it isn’t, I can tell it isn’t and no I’m not choosing anything, what are you talking about, I’m either signing up to a social network or I’m not.
Federation is a back end feature, it’s transparent to users, users don’t care about it. They will sign up for a thing and use it. Just like they signed up for gmail once and never thought about it again.
In any case, I’m not particularly keen on relitigating that. My solution to the concept of a social media endlessly repeating this argument and literally nothing else was to go elsewhere, so I’m good for now.
Look, I was there when email was a ISP thing. All emails looked the same everywhere because there was no support for anything but text, so that’s a supremely nerdy nitpick that doesn’t apply to the conversation.
I very much remember the mess when HTML and rich text emails were introduced. I remember back and forths about missing attachments. It was nowhere near as rosy as you remember.
Anyway go touch grass or whatever. My point only is that email went though similar growing pains and it was only helped in the mainstream initially due to ISPs and later on due to massive centralization. The same thing we’re trying to avoid with the fediverse.
