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The Federated App Problem

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Re: The Federated App Problem

#11

Post by evouga »

jojobas wrote: post #2

If you're thinking of federation in terms of "apps" yes it's doomed. Like with email, you have to think about it in terms of "service". The "gravitate to one provider" problem is there (as with gmail), but those who care can still have their own email services or use reasonable third parties. The tragedy of course is that very few people care.

Well since circa mid-2010s the Internet is apps. Or app-like centralized web sites (like Hacker News).

People want to install a single “Lemmy” app on their phone that shows them all Lemmy content and lets them post to all instances, using a single account and a *simple* user interface. If Lemmy cannot provide that user experience (abstracting away the federation), then yes it is doomed.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#12

Post by _HMCB_ »

One problem I see is the lack of cohesiveness between clients. What one client/app chooses to name a “repost” is different than another client. Icons for said features also vastly differ. So it’s hard to build unity through the ecosystem without a common language (visual and vocabulary). This is just my brand developer’s take.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#13

Post by jeromegv »

notatoad wrote: post #10
sxg wrote: post #4

I agree with the premise of the article. I’m a new Mastodon user trying to give the platform an honest shot, but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another. Why choose anything other than the pseudo-default Mastodon.social? If I’m forced to choose another server, is that choice actually meaningful? I feel like I’m randomly picking between Hachyderm and TechHub.io and others. One advantag…

>but I can’t figure out how to make a user’s server choice actually meaningful in theory, the instance-specific bit of it is the moderation. the one you sign up with chooses which other instances to federate with, as well as how to moderate the content on their own instance. in theory, you could sign up for an instance that only allowed the sort of politics you agree with, or that had very lax moderation, or that had…

> unfortunately, none of the fediverse seems to actually talk about this so without signing up and using an instance for a while to see what the moderation policies are like there's no way to know.

Correct, but that's why you can actually migrate your account (including your followers!) from one instance another. The initial choice doesn't matter too much. Just migrate if you don't like it. That's why there isn't much discussions about it.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#14

Post by egypturnash »

sxg wrote: post #4

I agree with the premise of the article. I’m a new Mastodon user trying to give the platform an honest shot, but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another. Why choose anything other than the pseudo-default Mastodon.social? If I’m forced to choose another server, is that choice actually meaningful? I feel like I’m randomly picking between Hachyderm and TechHub.io and others. One advantag…

> why would all problematic users congregate on the same server? Isn’t it far more likely that you’ll have to block individual users across numerous servers to keep the platform sane?

The fediverse is not one unified whole, the fediverse is a bunch of loosely-connected communities that can very easily throw up walls at a moment's notice.

Admins are actively incentivised to kick problem users off. If a server becomes known as a source of problems, then other admins will defederate from it. How you define "problems" depends on who you are, in general if an admin looks at a report for one of your users and finds you doing the exact same kind of bullshit as what your user was reported for then they will probably defed from you without a second thought. After a while your server will only be federated with other servers that are also fine with that particular kind of bullshit. If your particular kind of bullshit is "finding people who are different from you and making fun of them" then there's a high chance that the users on your server will either wander away, or turn on each other; both of these tend to lead to admins deciding it's not worth keeping the place running in my experience.

Mastodon.social is way too big to realistically be handled by anything but a bigger crew of paid moderators than it has, and "we should defed from mastodon.social because it's right on the border of being a constant source of trouble" is a topic that admins constantly chew on in places like the #fediblock tag. But you can start on one of the big servers and move, too. Possibly to a small one with a lot of your friends, so that the "local" timeline is useful. Possibly one run by one of your friends, who will make largely the same "oh god look at this server full of assholes, block'd" calls that you would, and save you the trouble. Possibly one with a cool name, would you rather be sxg@mastodon.social, sxg@possums.gay, sxg@gop.party, sxg@...?

(As far as I know neither Lemmy or Kbin offer account migration yet, so you're stuck on your initial one until they fix this. I'm sure it's in their roadmaps.)

Re: The Federated App Problem

#15

Post by jacooper »

I think the only reason people know about email supporting multiple providers is because its old, if email was made today, you bet its going to be centralized.

Heck people already scratch their heads when an email isn't hosted @gmail.com or @hotmail/outlook.com.

And the learning curve exists because unprofitable companies like Twitter and Reddit made centralization possible by burning money, the old internet was decentralized because centralization was impossible, it was too expensive.

If these failing companies die, federated services will be the mainstream again. But as long as there is money to be burned to try to make a poor business model out of social interaction, federation is never going to be able to compete.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#16

Post by sxg »

7e wrote: post #6
sxg wrote: post #4

I agree with the premise of the article. I’m a new Mastodon user trying to give the platform an honest shot, but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another. Why choose anything other than the pseudo-default Mastodon.social? If I’m forced to choose another server, is that choice actually meaningful? I feel like I’m randomly picking between Hachyderm and TechHub.io and others. One advantag…

Yes, all problematic users don’t congregate on the same server. Problematic users can pop up anywhere. However, a server could fail to moderate effectively and become a source of misinformation and trolling. That’s the benefit of federation: it ensures a minimum level of moderation quality. Servers that don’t moderate are blocked, which sets up the proper incentives.

Sure, but as the number of users on the federated service grows, how do we not end up in the same place as email today? Does it not become good moderation policy to auto-block all new and small servers (e.g., self-hosted email servers) if you're a big server (e.g., Gmail)? If that happens, wouldn't all users migrate to the big server (e.g., Gmail) and effectively re-establish centralization and undermine federation?

Re: The Federated App Problem

#17

Post by donio »

sxg wrote: post #4

I agree with the premise of the article. I’m a new Mastodon user trying to give the platform an honest shot, but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another. Why choose anything other than the pseudo-default Mastodon.social? If I’m forced to choose another server, is that choice actually meaningful? I feel like I’m randomly picking between Hachyderm and TechHub.io and others. One advantag…

> ... but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another.

Email is often a good analogy for questions like these: Why do you pick one email service over the other? Maybe you think the domain is cool. Maybe you heard that they are reliable or have features that others don't. Maybe your university, company or other community you belong to runs its own service. Or you decide to host your own. Or you really have no preference and you just go with the one your friend uses.

We just don't have just don't have the gmail-equivalent catch-all choices yet. Maybe that will come later or maybe it won't.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#18

Post by asnyder »

As far as email is concerned, one reason why you don't see as much as self-hosting or any frankly, is due to deliverability. Doesn't help to have your own mail server when all the mail coming from it is classified as spam and filtered out of inboxes leaving you to have to use a "trusted" hosted provider to ensure your email actually works as you'd expect.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#19

Post by Arn_Thor »

evouga wrote: post #11
jojobas wrote: post #2

If you're thinking of federation in terms of "apps" yes it's doomed. Like with email, you have to think about it in terms of "service". The "gravitate to one provider" problem is there (as with gmail), but those who care can still have their own email services or use reasonable third parties. The tragedy of course is that very few people care.

Well since circa mid-2010s the Internet is apps. Or app-like centralized web sites (like Hacker News). People want to install a single “Lemmy” app on their phone that shows them all Lemmy content and lets them post to all instances, using a single account and a *simple* user interface. If Lemmy cannot provide that user experience (abstracting away the federation), then yes it is doomed.

I have been actively looking for alternatives since the Reddit API fiasco started but I just don't have time to sit down and grok Lemmy or any of the other federated instances. And I'd argue I'm more tech curious than most. If this is such an obstacle for me, I imagine very many people won't bother either.

Re: The Federated App Problem

#20

Post by class4behavior »

sxg wrote: post #4

I agree with the premise of the article. I’m a new Mastodon user trying to give the platform an honest shot, but I can’t understand why I would choose any particular server over another. Why choose anything other than the pseudo-default Mastodon.social? If I’m forced to choose another server, is that choice actually meaningful? I feel like I’m randomly picking between Hachyderm and TechHub.io and others. One advantag…

The same way people manage to decide whether to buy buns at the bakery on the right rather than the one on the left or donate to the NGO1 rather than NGO2 doing exactly the same, you ought to manage to judge which instance is a better fit or if it even matters in your case.

>why would all problematic users congregate on the same server? Isn’t it far more likely that you’ll have to block individual users across numerous servers to keep the platform sane?

Well, exactly. And who's doing all the blocking and filtering? What are the rules? And which community is better at reporting and keeping the instance the way you like it? What about your interests? If you join a busy generic instance, of course, you will become disinterested in your local timeline.

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