So, this is probably just a me problem, but I am utterly bored by the concept of the Fediverse. I'll admit, part of my problem maybe due to a lack of knowledge as I haven't really dug into it. But...
So, this is probably just a me problem, but I am utterly bored by the concept of the Fediverse.
I'll admit, part of my problem maybe due to a lack of knowledge as I haven't really dug into it. But it just sounds incredibly boring and not worth my time investigating.
As for this post specifically, it is not clear to me what Flipboard is, why it joining the Fediverse is important in any way, and what impact this change will have.
And I think that gets to the root of why I'm ambivalent towards the Fediverse as a whole. It seems like a chore to understand, to use, and overall, not worth the investment of mental energy to care about.
Yep. I really like the Fediverse and the sort of philosophy behind it. However, I think this is what we need for widespread adoption. I see some try to explain the Fediverse like email, which...
Yep. I really like the Fediverse and the sort of philosophy behind it. However, I think this is what we need for widespread adoption. I see some try to explain the Fediverse like email, which works well enough. If enough pressure convinces these larger social media apps to support Activity Pub (the underlying protocol), then the competition between these apps starts to look a lot more like competition between email providers.
If you're a nerd, you can self-host. If you don't care, you can choose the app you prefer. If that app starts to go downhill or gets purchased by a megalomaniac, you can switch to another (you might be forced to set up your profile again, but at least you can find all the same content). But you know...many who are passionate about the Fediverse don't want to hear that.
But that's the thing, I haven't even heard any emotional appeals! Just: "it's better, trust me bro!" I've heard that with NFTs AND crypto too. Look where that got people.
But that's the thing, I haven't even heard any emotional appeals! Just: "it's better, trust me bro!"
I've heard that with NFTs AND crypto too. Look where that got people.
I agree that the "trust me bro" attitude sucks, but NFTs and Crypto are just ponzi schemes designed to make money, and federated social media is like, actually trying to make the internet a better...
I agree that the "trust me bro" attitude sucks, but NFTs and Crypto are just ponzi schemes designed to make money, and federated social media is like, actually trying to make the internet a better place.
That's true, but crypto was always inherently tied to currency. When something has monetary value people will strive to abuse it and maximize that value for themselves. Sure, eyeballs on social...
That's true, but crypto was always inherently tied to currency. When something has monetary value people will strive to abuse it and maximize that value for themselves. Sure, eyeballs on social media have value, but only very indirectly. It's also a lot harder to monetize the fact that your site has eyeballs on it when there are no ads to sell.
I honestly think the simple fact alone that it's not a system built around money will help quite a bit with it being a net good in general.
It's just too early. The "fediverse" (I do hate that word) is young, and built on shoddy tools that need to be rewritten and polished. It needs to become a whole lot easier to use if it's ever...
It's just too early. The "fediverse" (I do hate that word) is young, and built on shoddy tools that need to be rewritten and polished. It needs to become a whole lot easier to use if it's ever going to compete with centralized services.
But the point of it is that a federated network cannot be controlled by a single entity: if we were all using Mastodon instead of Twitter, Elon Musk couldn't have come in and ruined it for everyone. At worst a popular Mastodon instance maintainer decides to start ruining stuff on his instance, at which point everyone there would just move to a different instance (and retain all their posts, friends, follows, etc because that data is owned by you the user, not the app)
I appreciate your write up and have two thoughts. The explanation, while it does sort of make sense, is still a lot of information. I'd rather just go to each website and sign up individually....
I appreciate your write up and have two thoughts.
The explanation, while it does sort of make sense, is still a lot of information.
I'd rather just go to each website and sign up individually. It's not like I want thousands of logins, I'd just sign up for the 3 or 4 that interest me most.
If one or two of those websites contain links for all the others, all the better for me, I suppose. And I'd certainly gravitate towards the websites that have the most content.
I do understand how frustrating someone like me can be. I'm tech inclined and have been using computers for 20+ years. I know several programming languages, know more under the hood than the average user.
But it's just not clicking with me. I know in theory what you're describing has merit, but I just don't care. I'm sorry, that must sound unnecessarily hostile and I'm not trying to be.
I just want the old model, flaws and all.
Perhaps an analogy: I want to visit a store and be part of their rewards program, get discounts there. I want to go to a second store, and cancel my membership there because quality has been dropping. I want to go to a third store and try a free sample of something, find out what unique offerings they have but ultimately decide to never come back.
I don't want a central identity. I want the freedom to come and go as I please. I don't want a "shopper's pass" that let's me go to any store and get discounts at each.
Does that analogy make sense, even if my behavior and thoughts are not logical on his topic?
First of all, great explanation. I was familiar with the fediverse, but your explanation of the problem of different instances not jiving with one another based on individual features that might...
First of all, great explanation. I was familiar with the fediverse, but your explanation of the problem of different instances not jiving with one another based on individual features that might not be universal helped me understand some things about why I was having trouble following some Mastodon accounts from Lemmy. So thanks for that.
To be fair I've been using Mastodon for a year and a half and I still have very little idea what the Fediverse is. It's not the required knowledge people say it is.
To be fair I've been using Mastodon for a year and a half and I still have very little idea what the Fediverse is. It's not the required knowledge people say it is.
Flipboard... is this the same app that came pre-installed on Galaxy devices a generation or two ago, and was all-too-easy to accidentally swipe to from your home screen? I'm pretty sure that's the...
Flipboard... is this the same app that came pre-installed on Galaxy devices a generation or two ago, and was all-too-easy to accidentally swipe to from your home screen? I'm pretty sure that's the same Flipboard.
I imagine I'm not the only one with a negative/annoying association with the app, but I realize that's a "me problem" since IIRC it was trivial enough to disable/deactivate. Anyway. Best of luck to them.
Yes, it's that Flipboard. It came pre-loaded on some Samsung devices for several generations and had some annoying integrations on the lock/whatever screens of some devices. It's just a news and...
Yes, it's that Flipboard. It came pre-loaded on some Samsung devices for several generations and had some annoying integrations on the lock/whatever screens of some devices.
It's just a news and social media reader/aggregator sort of focused on being more visually accessible and for one-handed operation, but is basically articles you'd find on Reddit or BuzzFeed without necessarily having to go into the comments. Like most apps it serves ads and tries to recommend you stuff. I really hate all of those kinds of apps (and the idea that companies should be collecting private info to push recommended reading on people), but if it keeps certain folks (like my senior citizen neighbors) from interacting directly with Reddit, then maybe there's some merit to that after all. ;D
When it launched, it was effectively an RSS reader optimized for touch screens, but instead of adding specific feeds, you'd provide interests and the app would basically collate the RSS feeds of...
When it launched, it was effectively an RSS reader optimized for touch screens, but instead of adding specific feeds, you'd provide interests and the app would basically collate the RSS feeds of algorithmically-determined relevant content. As they moved further from direct "there are the most popular sites in a given niche" to a more engagement-directed algorithm, it started to lose its purpose, like you're alluding to.
But as someone who never owned a Samsung device with it preloaded, I have relatively fond associations.
So, this is probably just a me problem, but I am utterly bored by the concept of the Fediverse.
I'll admit, part of my problem maybe due to a lack of knowledge as I haven't really dug into it. But it just sounds incredibly boring and not worth my time investigating.
As for this post specifically, it is not clear to me what Flipboard is, why it joining the Fediverse is important in any way, and what impact this change will have.
And I think that gets to the root of why I'm ambivalent towards the Fediverse as a whole. It seems like a chore to understand, to use, and overall, not worth the investment of mental energy to care about.
Federation is very simple to use if you ignore about 18 exceptions and 53 edge cases. Apart from that, it's a piece of cake!
Yep. I really like the Fediverse and the sort of philosophy behind it. However, I think this is what we need for widespread adoption. I see some try to explain the Fediverse like email, which works well enough. If enough pressure convinces these larger social media apps to support Activity Pub (the underlying protocol), then the competition between these apps starts to look a lot more like competition between email providers.
If you're a nerd, you can self-host. If you don't care, you can choose the app you prefer. If that app starts to go downhill or gets purchased by a megalomaniac, you can switch to another (you might be forced to set up your profile again, but at least you can find all the same content). But you know...many who are passionate about the Fediverse don't want to hear that.
But that's the thing, I haven't even heard any emotional appeals! Just: "it's better, trust me bro!"
I've heard that with NFTs AND crypto too. Look where that got people.
I agree that the "trust me bro" attitude sucks, but NFTs and Crypto are just ponzi schemes designed to make money, and federated social media is like, actually trying to make the internet a better place.
No doubt most coins and NFTs are just ponzi schemes, but the creation of bitcoin was motivated by the same ideals as federated social media.
That's true, but crypto was always inherently tied to currency. When something has monetary value people will strive to abuse it and maximize that value for themselves. Sure, eyeballs on social media have value, but only very indirectly. It's also a lot harder to monetize the fact that your site has eyeballs on it when there are no ads to sell.
I honestly think the simple fact alone that it's not a system built around money will help quite a bit with it being a net good in general.
It's just too early. The "fediverse" (I do hate that word) is young, and built on shoddy tools that need to be rewritten and polished. It needs to become a whole lot easier to use if it's ever going to compete with centralized services.
But the point of it is that a federated network cannot be controlled by a single entity: if we were all using Mastodon instead of Twitter, Elon Musk couldn't have come in and ruined it for everyone. At worst a popular Mastodon instance maintainer decides to start ruining stuff on his instance, at which point everyone there would just move to a different instance (and retain all their posts, friends, follows, etc because that data is owned by you the user, not the app)
I appreciate your write up and have two thoughts.
The explanation, while it does sort of make sense, is still a lot of information.
I'd rather just go to each website and sign up individually. It's not like I want thousands of logins, I'd just sign up for the 3 or 4 that interest me most.
If one or two of those websites contain links for all the others, all the better for me, I suppose. And I'd certainly gravitate towards the websites that have the most content.
I do understand how frustrating someone like me can be. I'm tech inclined and have been using computers for 20+ years. I know several programming languages, know more under the hood than the average user.
But it's just not clicking with me. I know in theory what you're describing has merit, but I just don't care. I'm sorry, that must sound unnecessarily hostile and I'm not trying to be.
I just want the old model, flaws and all.
Perhaps an analogy: I want to visit a store and be part of their rewards program, get discounts there. I want to go to a second store, and cancel my membership there because quality has been dropping. I want to go to a third store and try a free sample of something, find out what unique offerings they have but ultimately decide to never come back.
I don't want a central identity. I want the freedom to come and go as I please. I don't want a "shopper's pass" that let's me go to any store and get discounts at each.
Does that analogy make sense, even if my behavior and thoughts are not logical on his topic?
First of all, great explanation. I was familiar with the fediverse, but your explanation of the problem of different instances not jiving with one another based on individual features that might not be universal helped me understand some things about why I was having trouble following some Mastodon accounts from Lemmy. So thanks for that.
Secondly,
tild.esis fucking brilliant.To be fair I've been using Mastodon for a year and a half and I still have very little idea what the Fediverse is. It's not the required knowledge people say it is.
Flipboard... is this the same app that came pre-installed on Galaxy devices a generation or two ago, and was all-too-easy to accidentally swipe to from your home screen? I'm pretty sure that's the same Flipboard.
I imagine I'm not the only one with a negative/annoying association with the app, but I realize that's a "me problem" since IIRC it was trivial enough to disable/deactivate. Anyway. Best of luck to them.
Yes, it's that Flipboard. It came pre-loaded on some Samsung devices for several generations and had some annoying integrations on the lock/whatever screens of some devices.
It's just a news and social media reader/aggregator sort of focused on being more visually accessible and for one-handed operation, but is basically articles you'd find on Reddit or BuzzFeed without necessarily having to go into the comments. Like most apps it serves ads and tries to recommend you stuff. I really hate all of those kinds of apps (and the idea that companies should be collecting private info to push recommended reading on people), but if it keeps certain folks (like my senior citizen neighbors) from interacting directly with Reddit, then maybe there's some merit to that after all. ;D
When it launched, it was effectively an RSS reader optimized for touch screens, but instead of adding specific feeds, you'd provide interests and the app would basically collate the RSS feeds of algorithmically-determined relevant content. As they moved further from direct "there are the most popular sites in a given niche" to a more engagement-directed algorithm, it started to lose its purpose, like you're alluding to.
But as someone who never owned a Samsung device with it preloaded, I have relatively fond associations.