I think the #Ghost and #Wordpress federations pose interesting questions about what #fediverse platforms can and should be.
Do we actually want blogs and feeds of blogs folded into a mastodon/microblog social feeds?
Do we want to read and comment on blogs on mastodon?
Do we want all the diversity of the fediverse fed into a single platform's UI and hope that it works well?
Are we worried that some choices by out platform or instance admin might hinder this process?
I'm rather skeptical.
1/
I feel like this might be mistakenly conflating the strength of the diversity of the fediverse with the convenience of using a single platform or UI for "everything".
I don't think the former necessitates the latter. Moreover, I suspect that the former is suppressed by the latter. Feeding blogs, groups and forums, microblogs, video+audio platforms etc all into a single twitter-like UI/platform ... seems like maybe a bad idea.
2/
The first thing it misses, I think, is that platforms naturally develop vibes and cultures and that many naturally learn to match a particular activity and persona to a particular platform/vibe.
Along those lines, it would completely make sense for people to be a bit silly and shitpost-y on mastodon and then more academic over on a blogging platform.
One could even argue that this isn't just natural but healthy, where more focused vibes create more coherent interaction.
3/
Presuming that a platform is a suitable "master" UI for everything looks to break this utility of platforms and online "spaces".
Moreover, mistaking that a "master platform" is possible for the promise of the fediverse may very well be dangerous if people embrace it with enthusiasm and hype to then be disappointed at how it doesn't work well and then question the value of decentralisation.
And I think that's important because federation doesn't guarantee a good UI. Probably the opposite.
4/
We've seen this already with the integration between the threadiverse (lemmy etc) and mastodon/microblogs.
It basically sucks because the platforms are fundamentally incompatible despite how close the protocol brings them together.
Incompatible platforms don't work together.
Federation and the protocol don't change that. People will just reroute around UI friction and basically ignore whatever federation is offering if its UI sucks. The lively app+frontend development indicates the same.
5/
Beyond having compatible UIs (which is tough if you're aiming for something relatively universal), there's then the issue of feed management.
The more that's pumped into your feed the more you need to filter and separate it out. That's a big UI challenge fediverse platforms don't seem up to either and which is generally tough. Not to mention that separate platforms or "spaces" actually become a feature here feed management, as annoying as all the apps can be.
6/
So, is the promise of a diverse fediverse a pipe-dream? Are the platforms up to the challenge of integrating with all the others? Or are people happy with a single UI?
I think it's "no" to all three. Which means something is being missed here (this is new after all).
A similar conversation happened recently over on #bluesky. It's a UI issue but at a system level and I'm not sure anyone has good solutions or is even thinking seriously about it.
7/
I fear this betrays the web2.0 origins of the fedi and may be short-sighted.
I don't think federating blogs into mastodon is going to be that great (hot take maybe). Too complex or confusing for many to manage and different platforms+accounts for different purposes is just natural/easy.
So ... why federate?
8/
I personally (and prob naively) look to the web browser's power to bring us the whole internet as an exemplar.
I think the fedi needs to be more about clients/apps than it is currently.
I think the magic of the fediverse's diversity doesn't materialise until it gets stitched together in the user's client ... and that we're still in an early phase of just laying out infrastructure in the cloud.
Federation is cool, but mostly just the beginning IMO.
9/9
@maegul the key is to emphasize empowering the user to get the experience the individual user wants.
If a user wants only microblogging, then he can choose an interface that ONLY shows microblogging, if that's what best suits him.
All of the other content available does him no harm. His UI will just ignore it.
This is just an example of one way that UIs can give users what they want, the simplest example. Other UIs will serve users differently.
All of the content transmitted into the system give UIs more flexibility to serve users, so always focus on that serving of users, not on the publishing side.
