Provider-Exclusive: “There is only the app of my provider.”
Provider-Centric: “There exist other apps, but the one I’m using is the main one.”
Service-Centric: “There is no main one and I’m trying to use the one that fits my ideal the best.”
Protocol/Ecosystem-Centric: “There exist other protocols/ecosystems, but mine is the main one.”
Fediverse-Principle: “There is no main one and I’m trying to use the one that fits my idea of an open ecosystem the best.”
Current state of different web2 apps:
The current state graphic doesn‘t make any sense to me. Twitter is in the same box as mastodon? Lemmy in the same as reddit?
It only makes sense in the horizontal axis: both Twitter and Mastodon are microblogs, while Reddit and Lemmy are link aggregator forums. The column view is … cryptic.
You can already see how Meta will also use imagery to establish its centre-position in the Fediverse with its symbol for the Fediverse (it has a centre):
(from https://mastodon.social/@liaizon@wake.st/112139602260820054)
Yeah, I’m no graphic designer but the fediverse logo looks like a nightmare to render at small sizes, which is what designers are looking for in a logo, typically - something that is easy to recognize, tells something about the product, and scales well at all sizes, from favicon to building sized ad. I like that it conveys its own meaning really well, but it’s also extremely busy. So many crossing lines in such a small space just looks like a garbled mess at small sizes. Take this image and scale it down to 16x16px, you can see what I mean.
It also looks kinda like a pentagram, which might not work given some of their userbase.
Come on, it’s only eViL if the star is upside down. Any weekend warlock of metal fan knows that. Also, hail Satan.
Most problems of the current Fediverse is because of how the Internet was build.
Current Internet has no social identity format, no open micropayment standard, no encryption by default so apps must reinvent their own, metadata leakages, namespaces like IP addresses and domains having centralized control, firewalls, NATs and other roadblocks disallowing most devices to host stuff…
Half of the Fediverse is hosted on Hetzner and the second half mostly on other big providers. User IDs are controlled by server admins. Even Nostr is just a band aid with it’s relays doing something Internet should be able to do - send data from device to device.
So long as people who care about where their instance is hosted and don’t like the big hosting providers can easily find services hosted elsewhere, I don’t think it matters too much. But perhaps you can go ahead and start working on plans to some day decentralize web hosting in general and I’m sure lots of people will join in once the worst of the problems at the application layer are solved.
Others already said it but I‘m gonna say it again for good measure:
Only in theory does an integration of meta and other billion dollar businesses make sense. Its neither technically possible, nor is it safe.
Its not likely to end up in anything except meta profiting from our posts and us being force fed their toxic, ad ridden dumpster fire of a social media serivice.
Threads.net remains blocked
Because you didn’t like the article that much, here only with the coolest images …
