Mastodon has seen a renewed interest these last few days, but when you look at the statistics mastodon.social siphons the biggest part of the pie, it sees a few thousands new sign-ups a day, while medium sized instance and smaller ones only get a few, sometimes just single digits increase.
This has been exacerbated since mastodon changed its UI both on web and mobile apps, to make the flagship instance the default one for sign-up in an effort to lower the entry barrier, which on the same time is leading to unhealthy concentration, on a platform that advocates for decentralization through federation.
Do you think this is the way forward on the fediverse ?
#mastodon #pixelfed #lemmy #fediverse
It’s not an issue. As long as .social is able to maintain the load.
The good thing about decentralization is that at any moment anyone could open a new instance and it would work perfectly fine. It does not matter if one instance have more or less users.
If it lowers the entry barrier it is welcome. It should not matter at all.
It is an issue if .social ever decides to “Be evil”, and utilized their outsized influence over the rest of the 'verse.
Edit: The concept is known as “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”.
The thing about the fediverse is that it’s incredibly easy to make an instance and they are all compatible. So if any instance becomes evil people just have to seamlessly move away.
It’s not like twitter where if the owner become evil there’s nothing to do. Here you just move instance and be done with it, still the same platform, still the same users.
and they are all compatible.
This is not a given. Anyone can fork the protocol. If they are a large enough instance, they can include evil features in their fork, and block any instance that doesn’t use that fork. The users of competing forks then don’t have access, and their users move to a cooperating instance.
It has happened before; It will happen again.
Or even change protocols. Mastodon used to use OStatus before it changed to ActivityPub. And some platforms are multi-protocol, like Hubzilla and Friendica. Whether they are compatible depends on which protocols they have turned on.
When have that happened? Within the fediverse?
Threads tried and failed to do that with mastodon. I think the fediverse is well thought to prevent that even by big actors.
!remindme 10 years
IDK if Mastodon has a good way to port accounts but I think its good to have people first join a basic instance and then move to something more specialized once they get used to the platform
Currently Mastodon does not support moving your content to a new server, but it does allow you to move your identity and followers to a new server (instance).
Honest opinion: IDGAF where people login. Market share is for corporations to worry about.
Until communities within instances can federate with each other this kind of consolidation is likely inevitable. Though that’s more of a lemmy specific perspective.
Or a Hubzilla, Friendica, or NodeBB perspective, because all of those support discussion groups and forums. And you can participate with them over ActivityPub without using their software or creating an account on their server. I am communicating with your using Hubzilla, not Lemmy right now.
I think that it is inevitable since there are different types of users. Ideally, everyone has their own fediverse server (“instance”) on their own domain name that they control. Or, families and small groups share a fediverse server. But most people are not that technical and just want something simple and something that works. That is where larger fediverse servers come in. They are an easy entry point for most people. Once people join, then they can migrate to a small instance, or preferably, start their own.
When I first considered signing up (I think it was on Mastodon), I was told how very easy it would be to move from one instance to another so it wouldn’t matter where I sign up - so I chose the first server that caught my eye. It was also implied that I’d need exactly one login for the entire Fediverse.
In hindsight, I’m okay with this not being true but it was a disappointment. At least moving servers (while taking your history with you) should be a lot easier if we’re trying to avoid big instances becoming bigger.
Very much this. They way it was explained to me was akin to what you are saying, single login, jump servers whenever. In practice it is not that
I’m a shitty developer by all measures but I assume such a feature would be tremendously difficult to implement especially this late in the game. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t think so. Like would my username have to be reserved across all instances? Would a new instance have to get some kind of list of known usernames? Where would that even come from? Who knows, not me, that’s for sure
However if it could be done I think that would be a huge selling point. “Imagine if your server started being a shitty place like facebook and you could just move to another without having to nuke your account” is a pretty big deal
Even if the username changed, having some feature where you can transfer your account and follows, history and notify all to your followers of the new name so their follow list gets updated could be coded, and it would make instance hopping relatively easy.
I’m against reserving your name in all instances but having a feature to change the handle and that all your followers don’t suddenly know who you are is important. Something akin to creating the new one, notifying of the change and leaving the old one directing to the new one for some time.
Or just not letting you swap to an instance if the handle exists. Idk. But this would make me actually start using mastodon if it were a feature. I might even start a fork and work on it.
Yeah I am thinking about how a implementation for a single acc for the whole fediverse could work.
Maybe a service with just handles authentication of users and gives the result to mastodon, pixelfed etc.
Like the login with google on websites.
Maybe that could be an application for block chain. The ledger has a the usernames and keys that you need to verify with you privat key.
So you log into mastodon with uid and privat key. Mastodon looks into the blockchain ledger and validates from there. If is is valid, you are loged in.
One universal login via fediverse sounds like a dream. I would love that.
there is a protocol used by HubZilla called zot, it allows for true nomadic identities. where you can even login to your account from any instance.
I don’t think ActivityPub (Protocol that links all mastodon, Pixelfed, lemmy, peertube instances) developpers have any interests in implementing that, or it isn’t so high in their priorities, also to note that ActivityPub developpment has stagnated since its early releases.
“moving servers” means what exactly? Changing your “home” instance? I assume you can still see content from other instances you’re federated with, right? Otherwise what’s the point
Imagine that the main instance starts to blocklist words and censor content. Or ads. Having a way to move all your history, follower and follow list would be great so deter such issues since users can abandon your server quickly and you would just lose the userbase you were trying to monetise.
Imagine I decide to invest in a private server and want to create my own instances and move my Lemmy and Mastodon accounts there to have better control of what happens.
Having to resubscribe to everything would suck and specially in mastodon, having to generate a new userbase from zero would just deter users from such things.
Another example, suddenly the Mali govt decides to close lemmy.ml, that would suck. Having a way to changing the instance would be just great.
You know how people often assume someone is trolling, simply because their account is new?
Another reason would be to not have a billion dead accounts on servers.
I don’t think it’s a big concern, if a big instance does something stupid people will just move to a different one, and people will also naturally move to instances with communities and moderation policies they prefer over time which will help spread things out
I think the key to survival and growth of federated platforms is that the onboarding experience for new users be simple and stable. If a new user has to understand what federation is and how it works, then the system is already failing them. Federation needs to be transparent to the fullest extent possible. There’s a lot of value in telling a user “You can sign up on any of these proven-reliable instances, and your choice doesn’t overly matter, because they’re general-purpose and stable, and you’ll still fully interact with users from every other instance either way.” There’s a lot less value in giving them a 30 minute presentation on federation, then overwhelming them with a list of 500 instances to pick from, half of which are hyper-focused on one topic or run by extremists.
At the same time, if they end up being led to an instance that has issues with stability, absent admins, political extremism at the admin-level, or if that instance is topic- or region-specific, or if that instance has defederated from a huge portion of the fediverse, or if that instance just shuts down and stops existing in a few months… Chances are that user’s going to get a bad impression of the platform as a whole, and never come back.
To me it just seems like the instances which don’t offer those issues - the general-purpose instances with long-term support plans, experienced teams, and sane admins - will just naturally end up as big instances, as survival of the fittest. And I don’t see that as an issue at all.
Like, sure, the fediverse is designed around decentralization, but there’s a point where decentralization hurts more than it helps. I don’t think anyone would disagree that if we had maximum decentralization, with every single user self-hosting their own instance, that things would be awful for everyone - and I don’t think anyone would disagree that the opposite, with 100% of users being on one single instance with no alternatives, would also be undesirable. There’s benefit to having consistent user experiences, consistent rules, consistent expectations.
In short, yeah, I think the way forward is having a few flagship general-purpose instances that vacuum up most new users, with a wide plethora of smaller instances that are less general-purpose, or region-specific, or just try out new things with rules and moderation policies.
I do think there should be an extremely simple way (for the end user) to migrate your entire account from one instance to another. Something you could do in just a minute or two.
It is impossible to satisfy both:
- Getting started is simple and easy and low-effort
- The instance won’t be bedeviled with low-effort people in large numbers
You have to pick your poison, I think. Personally I prefer option number 2.
If the protocol doesn’t give incentives for an even distribution of users, it’s not going to be solved by blaming individual instances or individual users.
The problem isn’t centralization, but the concept of a “generalist” instance. Instances should be more focused in concept and scope, and usable locally without feeling the need to scroll all.
I kind of disagree. In the sense that people have multiple interests and identities.
If you are a french person who likes anime and technology. Where so you sign up, to the French instance, the anime one, the one focused on technology? You have to make and maintain one account for every interest you have?
I think instances should be bland an irrelevant. Like email addresses. They should say nothing about the users of that instance. Imho, the goal should be that people just sign in in the most convenient instance and should not have to think again in which instance they are.
I really dislike it, the better way would have been randomly choosing one of the mid sized ones.
At least the Lemmy site randomizes the instance list for you.
Way to go
Same here. One reason why I build my own instances for my friends :)
Great. Are you participating in Lemmy Federate?
any idea how much disk space it costs to join this? like if you have an empty instance, does it add more than 1GB per month?
I created this tool and have been using it in my instance since the very beginning. My instance is almost 2 years old and it’s total database size is 60.2GB.
What people don’t understand about this tool is:
- If a community is generating enough activity, it’s likely that someone from your instance is already following that community.
- If a community isn’t generating enough activity, it won’t create much of a network/storage burden anyway.
Sure, it will make a small difference, but it’s nothing compared to the benefits it provides.
Thank you for the tool and the information!
this is the way.
small instances that can have niche content, owned and operated by those users (think beehaw) but with the ability to consume/interact with content from the rest of the fediverse (onramping).
deleted by creator
It’s inevitable.
It also serves to give new users a stable instance that they can learn on. Then they’ll either switch instances, stay with the biggest, start their own, or abandon federated social media entirely.
But that initial stability gives the best chances of people staying. I started on the big, obvious ones for lemmy and Mastodon. On lemmy, I abandoned my .world account pretty quick for this one because it offered what I need. It ended up being one of the bigger ones, but I don’t plan on switching. But when someone in my life wants to try lemmy, I tend to recommend one of the less annoying instances lol.
Mastodon, it was similar; .social didn’t fill my needs, so I migrated. Twice so far.
There’s always going to be a “biggest” instance. It’s going to be the one that’s easiest to find. You could plug in the smallest instance for Mastodon, and it would decentralize more. But it might also overwhelm that instance. Mastodon in particular has an organization that can maintain a solid instance with massive numbers. Letting it serve as a gateway just makes sense.
I personally think it’s not a big deal as long as you could easily move your accounts settings from one account to another.
If anything bad happens to the main instance people will just move elsewhere IMO.
In the specific case of Mastodon, an instance pretty much only receives a post via federation if one of its users either follows the creator of that post, or is mentioned in it.
Discoverability suffers, because this also applies to replies to a post even if you follow its poster. You might see them, or you might not. You look at the post history of one of the users in a thread and it comes up empty.
This is not much of a problem if you’re in one of the, say, top five instances, but beyond that, many functions become increasingly unreliable. Instead of one big microblogging ocean, it feels more like an assortment of a few lakes and myriad puddles with only tenuous interconnection.
Personally, I’ve kinda given up on finding (or creating) my One True Instance and am resorting to having profiles on all of the biggest instances. This also has the advantage that arbitrary defederation decisions affect me to a much lesser extent.
We have to be diligent, and work hard, to keep the fediverse balanced. If it tends to concentrate in a few areas, we might see a tendency to centralize and control.
