I was recently checking out the new fediverse.info (you should check it out, btw, it’s very well put together), and was struck by something as I was going through. Under the apps section, where users are prompted to pick an app, there is the question: “What do you want to do?”. It’s not a bad question, based on how the fediverse is structured. Each app has a niche, and so you need to pick an app based on the type of interaction you want to have.
However, what I noticed is that there is no “General” category. I.e., sites that do multiple of these things well. Sure, some sites might have some type of event functionality, and you can share images/videos on mastodon, lemmy and other microblogging/forum sites, but none of it is done to a standard that would make it your go to for any of those types of functions. So, it is necessary to say “what do you want to do” in order to guide people to the site that specializes in what they want.
Yet, this being the fediverse, all of these platforms can talk to each other. So does it have to be that way? Is there a way that we could move towards a more unified and multifunctional fediverse, vs a series of islands that each have different functionalities? What would that look like, and are there any platforms out there that are doing a more unified fediverse experience, specifically having a lot of different functionality/content types in one site/app?
I know people hate facebook comparisons, but I’m thinking of the level of different content/functionality that facebook has, posts, audience control, private/group messaging, groups, marketplace, events. This is the standard that is expected for social media these days. Can the fediverse live up to that expectation?
Yes, everything in the Fediverse can talk to each other. But not everything in the Fediverse gives its users the same features locally.
If you’re looking for something like Facebook, then Mastodon is crap because
- it’s too much of a tryhard Twitter clone
- you’re limited to 500 characters
- conversations are too loosely tied together from toots and more toots (as opposed to one post, many comments like literally everywhere outside old-school microblogging)
- no contact suggestions
- no dedicated profile fields, combined with no comparing your profile to other users’ profiles for ranking in the directory (would make it easy to find folks with the same interests and/or who live near you and/or who have contacts in common with you)
- most importantly, no support for groups whatsoever, not even for groups outside of Mastodon
Lemmy is just as much crap because it can only do groups, and you literally can’t follow/connect to specific users.
(streams) and Forte have everything you want minus marketplace. Hubzilla has everything you want minus marketplace and then a whole lot on top.
However: All three have the Eiger North Face of learning curves. There aren’t any dedicated phone apps for either. None of them work with Mastodon apps. You will have to use the Web interface, full stop (all three can be installed as PWAs, but next to nobody knows that PWAs exist, what they are and how to install them, and literally everyone wants a native mobile UI in the style of their phones). And there are next to no public, open-registration (streams) or Forte servers.
So there’s no “load app on your phone, name, maybe e-mail, password, there you go, default settings work perfectly for 99.9% of all users”.
And I say this as someone who has been using Hubzilla as a primary daily driver since both before Twitter was bought out and before Reddit was enshittified, and who also has two (streams) channels.
At the same time, not everyone is looking for a new Facebook. Many only want a Twitter replacement for dumb-dumbs; it’s actually Misskey or Sharkey although everyone’s only ever being pushed into Mastodon. Others only want “Reddit without enshittification, but otherwise literally Reddit” which is Lemmy. Others want “literally Instagram, but not owned by Mark Zuckerberg” which is Pixelfed.
None of them would be happy on that utter feature monster that’s Hubzilla. Hubzilla as a Twitter replacement is like you want a little boat with an outboard engine, and you’re offered the Queen Mary 2 (admittedly, with a rather well-written user manual and a helpful community).
I’m thinking of the level of different content/functionality that facebook has, posts, audience control, private/group messaging, groups, marketplace, events.
If you spend your time looking beyond the ‘mainstream’ fedi platforms this problem has been solved by a family of softwares, hubzilla has them all, streams, forte, friendica have more or less most of what you listed.
my eyes hurt at such heights of ai slop. the intention is good but lord that execution lacks taste
edit: talking about the site not your post
What leads you to believe that it’s AI generated? The site is made by dansup who also works on Pixelfed and Loops.
its frontend is full of these AI-isms for frontend visuals and the text presented which makes me sad
Feedback is welcome:
the neobrutalistic aesthetic of the landing page is nice but once I open the original page from the post it remains in that other style
I’m not sure if that’s how internet platforms work as of today. It’d be a nice idea, for sure. And I think we have some all-in-one platforms. Or at least platforms who aspire to do a lot of different things. But other than that, I think it’s kinda the same situation in the commercial internet. X does shorter public messages, Reddit does threaded discussions. YouTube does longer videos. Instagram does enless scrolling through short clips and images… And group chat rooms will be on Discord or WhatsApp. Classified ads and garage sales will be yet another platform… There’s some blurry lines, for example YouTube can do image stories. But it’s designed in a weird way and not really mainstream. They do short clips but you kinda switch modes when doing that and all younger people rarher stay on Instagram and TikTok anyway. People announce their events on Instagram all the time but it doesn’t specifically help with the use-case. One thing they all have in common is some vaguely similar commenting system. It’s social media after all. But I think they all focus on a specific subset of things. I know Elon Musk has some dream of providing an everything-app. But he can’t do it either.
I wonder what average people even like. I kinda liked the early idea behind social media platforms like Facebook. You could send memes there, talk to friends or strangers, sell old stuff, talk about your pets in some group. or whatever. Maybe there’s some space for one of our platforms which isn’t occupied by a lot of competing platforms…
These siloed platforms are created to favor the companies, not the users. The web is open. We don’t need one different browser to read long articles, write a trip blog, or to read movie reviews.
The app-iification of the web is something that we should be eschewing away, not trying to replicate it because this generation grew up not knowing any better.
It’s a very involved discussion to be had. There’s the difference between what should be, and the reality of what people do. And I’ve been trying to convince people for decades now. And it’s hard to impossible across the board. I’ve seen how we slowly moved from blogs, Linux forums, more open messengers to WhatsApp, asking Linux questions on Reddit and just not writing genuine personal blog articles any more. I think it’s been a constant decline for like 15(?) years now? And that’s across generations. Even the boomers enjoy WhatsApp for example. It’s hard for me even to convince anyone to move to Signal, which isn’t that different from user perspective. They’re already all comfy within a silo. Yeah, and now -for some reason- the youngest people don’t even own a laptop anymore. They kinda need the apps. And they’ve been taught to be at the receiving end of consumerism.
Also kinda hard to find allies to start some kind of revolution. I like how PieFed for example expands on the concept we have here. MBin as well. But mainstream opinion here is something alike a Reddit clone. The majority of the audience wants(?), needs(?) that.
Even if there were some multi- or omni-functional fediverse metaplatform, I think “what do you want to do” is still a valid question. Some people may want to host a public forum, others may want to host a private family chat, others may want to host and/or share images and video, still others may want to all those things and more with an all-in-one solution. I don’t think having a generalist platform would stop others from wanting to host niche or more specialized platforms for their own purposes; it all depends on what you want to do with your hardware.
With that said, I think it would be cool to have better interoperability between services. It’d be cool to have it so that if I make an account on a domain, I could hop easily between all the services hosted there. And it would be cool if it were easier for developers to make smaller services that can run on a general-purpose platform, and easier for admins to add and remove services as they wish, and maintain several services without it being an overwhelming hassle.
well, put up or shut up? we are all doin our best for freakin free
i picked mbin because it was the most broadly connecting platform, but it has its limitations… especially in the micro blogging arena.
youre welcome to contribute https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin
This seems needlessly combative. I think “what if we had a swiss army knife platform that integrated a lot of different functionality” is a perfectly fine question regardless of the asker’s inclination or ability to contribute to a platform’s development.
And I feel “for free” regularly isn’t a good point to lead with. From the average person’s perspective this isn’t about cost, they’re not even aware internet platforms cost money. As Google, Meta or X or the Chinese don’t take money from the average user either. Nevertheless, they provide them with all kinds of features. So in my opinion we need to advertise with other distinguishing features and sort out cost some time later.
Happy Cake Day.
