[how_to_bake]

I recently joined Twitter and I have to agree that Retweets are the most cancerous part.

Accounts with many followers act like schoolyard bullies with their gang of yes men.

I still see federation as being too niche, but it doesn't have to be that way! I think in an ideal situation, federated servers would rely more on physical location than on deviant niche hobbies or addictions.

The Smith family should have a server (or your neighborhood should) rather than cyberpunk.furry.foxes. Because the reality is that people are more than just one thing and the concept breaks down when you start discussing action movies or cryptography on your @[e-mail] account.

I think secure-scuttlebutt goes for more of the real world location-based server concept a bit. But I think most people prefer the peace of mind of some kind of administration being possible if needed.

[thsealienbstrds]

ISPs could even provide the federated services like they provide e-mail. Another way it might work is companies that sell people federated service servers as products that they can deploy for example in their home or let the company host it. In any case maintenance must be included. I don't see how federated will take off without commercial support. The Smiths might be technically capable but I doubt the Jones's who are not are willing to let the Smiths control their service. That kind of defeats the point.

[how_to_bake]

There is at least one[0] company providing mastodon hosting as a service. There really should be more though. The more Mastodon becomes compliant with Activity Pub, the more you could potentially replace all social media with it. Then both email and social media would be properly federated.

I agree that the Jones' wouldn't want to be hosted by the Smith's instance. But I can forsee something like a local co-op managing an instance for all neighbors. But personally, I'd rather just pay a company that I know is subject to various laws and consumer agreements, etc.

[0]: https://masto.host/

[esrauch]

Do people use ISPs email anymore?

[twblalock]

Yes, and it keeps people locked in to their ISP because switching would involve updating the email address in all of their online accounts and notifying all of their contacts about the change.

I finally convinced my parents to bite the bullet and switch to Gmail so they can switch to a better ISP. It's a real problem.

[ColinWright]

Yes.