Exactly, and to be clear I’m not saying federation instead of decentralization is a bad idea or a bad compromise. We just need to recognize its pros and cons, that it is a compromise.
In this particular case federation means handing content to untrusted third parties and asking them politely to respect visibility notations. That’s fine so long as everyone is aware it’s based on voluntary compliance.
Had the system been designed around decentralized users instead of federated instances we could have cut out the third party. But that’s not the compromise they settled on.
Well, I would point to Web of Trust over blockchain for this particular application, but yep.
Blockchain gets you confirmations of timing that aren’t so vital for social media, IMO. Web of Trust gets you the authentication without the overhead needed to run a blockchain.
@volkris
Decentralization and blockchain are more trustless, federating is not. That's the key takeaway
@mathias @jupiter_rowland @MetalSamurai