The problem with building a closed social network is that it sets up an all or nothing premise for users. They might like some of the signature features but they'll leave if there's not enough people to network with. That's a shame and a huge barrier to innovation and new social products.
The #fediverse changes that forever. People can now use the features they like from a mix of apps across a common network of people. This means we can take a whole new approach to how "social" and "media" should work including discovery, user experience and monetization that will be far healthier than anything we've had in the past.
@mike Now what we are in need of is a 'Cambrian Explosion' of fediverse applications.
It'll come - at some point... But how do we meaningfully lower the barrier to entry of that new class of Fediverse-all-the-things apps?
@mpesce Good question. A bunch of people are working on that including @evan, @tchambers and @J12t. Making #activitypub easier to implement within iOS and Android apps could enable the kind of Cambrian explosion you're talking about.
@mike @evan @tchambers @J12t that plus some nice application frameworks plus some outstanding apps to inspire and we'll be well on our way...
@mike Why does it need to be monetised? And in what way are you suggesting that it should be?
@David_Bartlett I think we'll ultimately need ways for people who are posting content, hosting instances or building user experiences to be able to sustain their work. I think there could be a mix of ways to do that but it will be important to carefully design how these are implemented so we don't repeat the mistakes and issues we've seen with surveillance capitalism, horrible ad experiences, etc.
One of the biggest challenges we've had with current monetization models on the web is that they tend to keep users disconnected from content creators. This has lead to a lot of downstream bad practices. Some good exceptions to this are models like Patreon and paid newsletters which focus on building direct connections between creators and their audience. I think the fediverse can expand on these ideas because activity pub is a far stronger connection.
Lots to think about here but I think it will be important to figure this out for any real alternative to the walled gardens to emerge and thrive at scale.
@mike @David_Bartlett I submit that monetization is the wrong thing to pursue for the Fediverse. It's harmful in conception, dangerously narrow in focus, and deeply problematic in all common execution. What we should be pursuing is sustainability, which is both broader and self-limiting.
yes I agree that we should be pursuing sustainability.
@mike the only current limitation of the Fediverse is that to fully leverage the features of one server you'll need an account there and use its frontend. I look forward at an evolution of the system where the backend is fully content-agnostic and different frontends can be used with the same account. THAT will be perfection.
@clith @mike but Mastodon is only good (if at that) for microblogging. Its interface is designed for that. PixelFed, PeerTube, lemmy, kbin etc have very different interfaces optimized for specific ways to interact with posts, images, videos, etc. And while you can interact with content from any of these platforms from any other platform, the experience is … suboptimal —and that's assuming you can at all.
1/n
@clith @mike for example, Mastodon has extremely poor support for ActivityPub Image objects, which is why PixelFed actually shares Notes instead of Images (which would be more appropriate): it does it to work around a limitation in Mastodon's design that no frontend can fix, because the content mangling happens at the server (backend) level, see also https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/24079 . And if you want a more type-specific experience, you actually do need multiple accounts on different services.
2/n
@clith @mike this is overall detrimental to the Fediverse and ActivityPub. What would be a better approach? One where the server is largely content-agnostic, and just takes care of account management and content distribution, with frontends taking care of the presentation. This way you could have “the PixelFed experience”, “the PeerTube experience”, “the Mastodon experience”, “the Lemmy experience” etc all from one single account (and PixelFed wouldn't have to fake its content type).
3/n
@clith @mike there are projects working in that direction, such as Vocata https://codeberg.org/Vocata/vocata, that also draws the useful parallel on email, differentiating the MTA from the MUA.
4/4
@manlycoffee @oblomov @mike
I should also note that #Graze is a thing that exists and people should use it because it simplifies browsing other instances exactly as you described by making your Web Browser effectively act as your front-end.
@Raccoon @manlycoffee @mike I'm not familiar with Graze. How does it solve the issue that non-Note objects get mangled by the server?