[Panzer04]

The concern I have with these federated instances is I don't see how they resolve the long term problems of stability.

Content on instances can disappear at a moment's notice if it goes down. My favorite part about reddit is the amount of information it has that is well-indexed by google.

These Lemmy and kbin alternatives might fulfill the moment-to-moment chatter, but it worries me that there's no guarantee of continuity for information. The best you can do is be discerning about the instance you pick. If there was a mechanism for distributing information across instances so it's saved, or some other assurance it'd make me happier about it.

[paholg]

Information is distributed across instances. If instance A hosts community C and a user on instance B subscribes to that community, its posts will be duplicated on instance B.

[Panzer04]

Really? That's very interesting, and good to hear. I'll have to look more into it, because that's really my main concern long term. Not that I have any real control, but I'm reticent to support platforms that could still go dark out of nowhere if I can avoid it.

[cooljacob204]

How does moderation work? If a mod deletes a post on A does it get deleted in B?

[basch]

The current paradigm will be a learning experience, and more of an ethereal result than archival. It’ll itch some Snapchat rub. Lots of experimentation and destruction.

Until identity transcends instances (shared identity databases between all the fediverse), communities are portable, and data peered across mirrors/nodes, it won’t work in a way that promotes longevity.

The fediverse in its current incarnation benefits those that use social media more like a chat room than a wiki. But losing your account to the entire fediverse when an instance goes down seems way worse than an unused community disappearing. It’s like taking an email address from an email host that spun up yesterday for fun, and hoping you’ll keep access to it.

[johnchristopher]

And that's where the email analogy fails (again).

[pixl97]

Stability costs money no one wants to pay.