I’ve been seeing these “why not federated <something>” popping up here from time to time, so i figured I could make two suggestions (a suggestion and a question, really) that have been popping up in my mind as well.

Let me ask the question first, in this post, and make the suggestion on another post, to keep the discussion clean:

Wouldn’t it be better to have the fediverse be a server only (like mail, or usenet - as federated as can be) and then have clientes like mastodon, lemmy, whatever… be just clientes to that server?

The post would have fields like author, date and time, subject or title, text resume, text content, image, link, video, x, y, z, … Then clientes would fetch whatever they are interested in (maybe mastodon would focus on author, date, image and text resume, pixelfed on image, peertube on video, lemmy on all of them… a blog would fetch the author, the date, the title, possibly text resume to use as lead, and text content and display that as a blog entry…

Information could, then, just flow via jason, xml (xmpp, why not)

Maybe I’m being naive here, but would very much like to understand why.

Of course the server would authenticate and distribute to other servers and to clientes what they ask for.

The image is a little provocation, of course ;-)

  • technomad@slrpnk.netEnglish
    10·
    4 days ago

    No, that’s the complete opposite of what the fediverse is trying to do. Centralization and corporate ownership are the reason so many other platforms are enshittifying and failing. Having many servers ensures resiliency against that fundamental weakness.

    I may have misunderstood what you meant.

      • Ninguém@lemmy.ptOP
        2·
        4 days ago

        That said, I foresee that all of those that now host a shinny mastodon or lemmy instance would not be as many - plain command line, no visuals, boring server stuff is a lot less sexy. But those could just link their instances to a server (they could host themselves as well, of course).

        Maybe this is already happening and I fail to recognize it?.. How do you host a lemmy instance, for instance? Aren’t there “services” supporting your instance?.. I honestly don’t know.

          • Ninguém@lemmy.ptOP
            1·
            4 days ago

            Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not familiar with how ATProto works. But the ATProto is not very “decentralized”, is it? Or is it just a case of not many people caring to link their instances to ATProto servers?

            Maybe the problem I described earlier?

              • Ninguém@lemmy.ptOP
                1·
                4 days ago

                O saw that post fly by in the distance some time ago (it’s from Fri, 22 November 2024), but only skimmed through it because it was to long for that moment. It still is, so I’ve added it to my “read it later when you dare” app.

                On one hand, maybe Christine Lemmer-Webber agrees with me in the sense that ATProto might end up being somewhat decentralized. The DID problem could perhaps be circumvented. On the other hand, here’s a quote from the text that I did like:

                When you build architecture that in theory anyone can participate in, but the barrier to entry is so high so that only those with the highest number of resources can participate, then you’ve still built a walled garden. – Morgan Lemmer-Webber, (summarizing things succinctly in our household over breakfast)

                The quote might argue against my assumption that just having the possibility of owning a (fediverse) server might entice enough people to participate in the ecosystem… just like email, I guess.

                Again: didn’t read the full article. Only tldred it and presumed the rest.

  • azdle@news.idlestate.orgEnglish
    5·
    4 days ago

    I agree that would make sense. I think it’ll come with time.

    To others, I’m pretty sure what OP is suggesting is just a generic activity pub server that all the various front ends could use.

    I’m pretty sure this is what the original (?) authors of the AP spec intended and that’s why they specified a client-server protocol. My understanding is that (almost?) no one uses that API though, they all just specify their own.

    • Ninguém@lemmy.ptOP
      2·
      4 days ago

      See above (sorry, should have replied to your post, had I not get confused with the fact that later posts appear above earlier ones).