How is federated social media better?
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
In your example, if bluesky goes you lose it all (until/if their form of federation actually exists and is usable). If the Mastodon server I'm on (toot.community, because I like the name) goes, you move to another or host your own and keep on trucking.
When reddit did their API shit i left and lost the account, subreddits, apps, everything. When Lemm.ee announced it's shutdown i moved to lemmy.zip and picked up exactly where I left off.
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Pro:
- Interplatform Interaction(Activity Pub): Instances if the same platform and the Instances themselves can communicate (message, post, upvote, etc) with each other if they are federated.
- Decentralized: Community managed instances means no commertial interest, no single point of failure and the option of having your own rules. Intances with bad rules or intentions do not get federated (can't interact with each other).
- Free Open Source Software: Transparency and community contributions, If a project is abandoned it can always come back in the form a fork..
- Privacy: No data collection, no data selling from the platform/intances themselves.
- No advertisements
- No shitty UI
Con:
- Decentralized: People do not expect to have to choose a instance(server), and assume they are missing out on the other servers joining a particular one. And since its community supported the uptime and longevity of instances may be cut short.
- Free Open Source Software: Community volunteers to delevop the platforms on their free time means that sometimes development can be slow or even the project is abandoned.
- Cost on missing out on already established Big Tech platforms
IMO it's ban/block evasion which is the biggest con to decentralization. It's a problem on centralized platforms but the many servers design makes it easier on fediverse.
It's not a huge deal to me because I don't block many things but might be a consideration for people with a sensitive disposition.
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
I think this video explains it better than I could do https://videos.elenarossini.com/w/64VuNCccZNrP4u9MfgbhkN
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
It isn't. It just aligns better with the privacy preferences of some people.
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
There's 1️⃣ unique draw to the fediverse : depending on service , you can (view|interact with) all different kinds of posts without (necessarily) needing to create separate accounts for different services (experience will vary depending on what software your instance runs though) . Examples :
- Can view (peertube|pixelfed|lemmy|.*) posts directly from your mastodon account
- [km]bin are threadiverse softwares that also allow you to (view|post) the twitterlike style posts you see on (mastodon|(.*)(oma|key)|.*) instances and not just reddit style threadiverse posts
… but that's about where tangible benefits end IMO . Fediverse only better in (technical|data privacy|potentiality) sense , may be more resistant to enshittification (tangent : wish there was better word for this , "enshittification" sounds kinda stupid IMHO) but don't believe it's completely immune
Also I've seen enough fedimeta to know "run by huge dickwads" not (exclusive to centralised services|isolated issue) . Every other big fediverse (instance|project) feels like it's managed by temporarily embarrassed (Elon musk|matt mullenweg)s , so like , pick your poison !
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Federated social media is decentralized, so one single jackass can’t control it completely.
Like, maybe Elon Musk buys pawb.social, he now controls pawb.social & can be a tyrant in pawb.social just like he has been with Twitter.
He still can’t control quokk.au, or lemmy.world, or feddit.org, or lemmy.ca, or lemmy.dbzer0.com, or lemmy.blahaj.zone, etc.
And in the extremely unlikely event that if Elon does manage to buy pawb.social, it is extremely likely that many lemmy servers would just defederate from pawb.social & leave pawb.social isolated from the rest of the fediverse.
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
Aside from the theoretical reasons, which are great, it feels like on the federated services there's less speaking at people, and more actual conversations.
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It isn't. It just aligns better with the privacy preferences of some people.
Which is kinda funny, because from what I gather, it's even less private than some of the large social networks. (everyone can see everything vs one entity sees everything, but no one else).
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
Lemm.ee is shutting down. The Fediverse still exists.
If Reddit shuts down, welp.
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Federated social media is decentralized, so one single jackass can’t control it completely.
Like, maybe Elon Musk buys pawb.social, he now controls pawb.social & can be a tyrant in pawb.social just like he has been with Twitter.
He still can’t control quokk.au, or lemmy.world, or feddit.org, or lemmy.ca, or lemmy.dbzer0.com, or lemmy.blahaj.zone, etc.
And in the extremely unlikely event that if Elon does manage to buy pawb.social, it is extremely likely that many lemmy servers would just defederate from pawb.social & leave pawb.social isolated from the rest of the fediverse.
missing a word in your first sentence
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Spez isn't in full control. (Slimy little worm.)
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Good point: Look at lemmy - kbin - piefed. The guy behind kbin thought "lemmy is nice but I could make something better", and then whoever is behind mbin saw that and said "I can make kbin better" and forked it. But without starting over in terms of connectivity or content! And now we have piefed which is on the edge of being even better and it's still introperable. The power of that can't be undersold.
I think that's basically the whole point. Or if someone would rather use Mastodon - look, the lemmy userbase is there as well!
Piefed, Mbin and Lemmy aren't necessarily aggressively competing like X and Bluesky are. It's moreso friendly cooperation. Sure, if the fediverse was a bit more commercialised, you'd have competition. But it would be fairer competition based on how good your Software and ethics are and not on who else is also using the app.
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missing a word in your first sentence
Oops, my bad. Thanks. It’s been corrected.
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Lemm.ee is shutting down. The Fediverse still exists.
If Reddit shuts down, welp.
If Reddit shuts down, welp.
nelsonlaugh.gif
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I found myself chatting with my dad and brought up the topic. I couldn't come up with any actual advantages a federated platforms had. The main reason I use any federated platforms is because they're either not as enshittified as the alternatives or run by huge dickwads. Since it mostly fits those criteria, I'm on Bluesky too, but once that goes I'll either switch to another un-shittified platform or Mastodon.
But on its own, what advantage does a federated social media have?
Preventing one single entity from having too much control over information to the extent that they can push propaganda and dominate a narrative.
Decentralization leads to better (I didn't say perfect) democratization of social media.
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It takes power away from the hands of corporations.
Sorry you got suckered into choosing bluesky over Mastodon. Hopefully you'll learn one day.
I do plan on switching to Mastodon. Once Bluesky gets too enshittified I'm moving, but right now there's too few people to cater to my specific interests
