6
votes
Federated?
At some point reddit had plans to implement a federated protocol and let users run their own instances, but that was throw out of the window to satisfy shareholders interests. Does tildes has plans to implement a federate protocol in the future or is something that hasn't been considered?
Even though they've got an faq entry on this, I think it merits discussion, because tildes scratched an itch a lot of people have for ways to be better than reddit. Tildes itself is just a part of a bigger conversation about how to have better online communities.
One of the major issues is having the right incentives. Right now tildes intends to survive on donations, and we don't yet know how that is going to play out; it potentially means catering to some degree to the interests of the community, whatever those turn out to be. And on the users side, anyone who would commit their time and effort to being here would be tied to a single platform, for better or worse.
I really hope tildes cracks the code in terms of fixing toxicity, avoiding low-effort shitposting, and keeping clear of that indefinable feeling of something being off that comes from marketing campaigns and feedback loops of ideological extremism. Fixing all of that stuff would be good. But meanwhile, we can and should keep the decentralization conversation alive, because every step forward is a chance to reignite our imaginations in terms of what can and should be possible with online communities.