What exactly is the Fediverse?

[blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

ATP still requires millions to host a relay https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/13/24342799/free-our-feeds-social-media-ecosystem-at-protocol-bluesky

[fundmecfsresearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

This isn’t the same thing.

Bluesky has something called fedibridge (third party), where your entire account is forwarded to mastodon and acts like a native mastodon account when viewed from mastodon.

A relay is something that hosts the viewable content on the ATprotocol. Currently, the only relay that encompasses the entire AT protocol is hosted by bluesky PBC, though there are a few very small relays for specific niches.

[blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I was mostly referring to the fact that the day Bluesky decides to ban bridges, ATProto won't be part the Fediverse as per the definition of the comment above.

I personally prefer to just consider them as out from the start.

[commander@lemmings.world]

If anyone asks me this, I'm going to tell them I don't know but I'm figuring it out as I go along.

[meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz]

Matrix and XMPP are federated but not part of the Fediverse, which revolves around ActivityPub. While they share the principle of decentralization, the Fediverse specifically connects platforms like Mastodon or Lemmy via ActivityPub. Promoting a Matrix room in Lemmy communities might align with shared values but doesn’t make Matrix part of the Fediverse. Bridging these ecosystems is possible but not inherent.

[Guest]

Its a series of tubes

[povoq@slrpnk.net]

XMPP also has a working ActivityPub bridge. But I think at some point these bridges are a bridge too far.

Software like Friendica or Hubzilla that can speak multiple protocols including AP are clearly part of the Fediverse, but things that need 3rd party bridges IMHO are not, as the creators clearly do no intend them to be part of it. Otherwise Xhitter would be also part of the Fediverse as bridges exist(ed in the past at least).

[breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca]

Wasn't the Twitter "bridge" just bot accounts though? It's a bit different with Bluesky because they've said that they completely support bridges between AT and AP but just don't have the resources to work on them themselves. Anyway, ActivityPub co-author Even Prodromou gave an interview yesterday where he included Bluesky as part of the Fediverse because of the bridge.

Personally, I consider them to be both part of and not part of the Fediverse, I guess. I wouldn't send someone there and I also kind of think they're a bunch of dicks for re-inventing the wheel instead of contributing improvements here.

[evil_shrubbery@lemm.ee]

So ... not the combined works (verses) of the famous poet Fedy?

[irelephant@lemm.ee]

The fediverse originally had nothing to do with ActivityPub. Diaspora and ostatus were, and still are a part of it.

Although, the term seems to typically fixate on social networking.

[irelephant@lemm.ee]

Are you talking about bridgy fed?

[fundmecfsresearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

ja fedibridge bridgyfed im mincing words

[supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz]

"federation" implies deep interconnect, a "bridge" on the otherhand is an artificial architecture of connection along narrow fragile terms.

Just because you build a bridge to the fediverse doesn't mean you are really part of the vibrant, free core of the fediverse city center, you are just mooching out or at best trying to arrange an alliance.

When two things federate on the fediverse it is like there being two cool places in a city where there are a million different ways to connect those two places together, often in surprising and novel ways that people didn't necessarily see.

A city of bridges is not a city.

So like, cool Bluesky has a bridge here now, I hope it doesn't get knocked out by a freak act of nature I mean enshittification....

[emperor@feddit.uk]

I was mostly referring to the fact that the day Bluesky decides to ban bridges, ATProto won’t be part the Fediverse as per the definition of the comment above.

It will, Friendica uses the BS API.