The Fediverse is Not The Future of The Internet.
The Fediverse is Not The Future of The Internet.
Twitter and Reddit. Arguably the biggest sources of fresh and current information at all. You want to know what is going on <em>right now</em>? Go visit one of the two and you’ll be up to speed in a matter of minutes.
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I don't think the Fediverse will become mainstream. But I'm actually happy about that. And so should you.
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The main reason behind Reddit’s API changes and Twitter Blue is money. This is and always will be the driving force for companies.
It makes sense. The people need to be payed, the servers need to be run.Twitter Blue exists because Musk is an asshat, and screwed himself out of billions of dollars, and he's trying to claw some back. Reddit's API changes are because they're trying to set up for an IPO to line the pockets of the board and executives, not just of Reddit, but of Advance Publications, the parent company.
That IPO set up isn't only about profitability right now, it's also about the profitability of reddit going forward. The effect of all the nonsense that's going on over there is that the userbase is having the critical people culled away, leaving only the people who don't understand or care. This means that Reddit The Company will be more in control of the content. Advertisers don't like their ads showing up next to porn, and it's arguable that people who are critical of the way reddit behaves are less likely to click ads (on purpose), and certainly less likely to convert into customers for those advertisers.
Did Reddit The Company plan it that way? Not a chance. They've been doing stupid things hamfistedly for a while, some might say since the very beginning.
As a counter to your opinion that the fediverse is not the future of the internet: Meta jumped in, Threads is an ActivityPub platform. Wikimedia has an instance now. I believe the Netherlands government stood up an instance. I don't know the federation status of any of those, but it's something.
The difference between standalone siloed platforms like Instagram, or Reddit, or, Digg, or SomethingAwful, or Fark, or Twitter, or, or, or -- is that ActivityPub is a protocol. Anyone can write code to create a platform to use ActivityPub, and have that platform interact with other ActivityPub content in a myriad of ways. I fully expect there to come an ActivityPub platform that really catches on, much more powerfully than any of the current ones out there.
Interesting take. I know about Meta and it wouldn't be out of character for the Dutch government to go into the federated direction. It would be really awesome to see more federated platforms catch on like Mastodon. We just have to be careful about letting companies like Meta in. What happened with XMPP can't happen with the Fediverse. I do admit that I probably make it out to be worse than it will be, I'm just the cautious kind. Let's hope that the Fediverse will be a nice place with nice people for a long time.