[indigochill]

> That isn't to say federation will be successful

Federation is already successful, since email is federated (you can register on gmail.com and send an email to an account at yahoo.com, or even run your own email server, although the ecosystem has evolved/commercialized to make that more difficult than it strictly has to be).

But Lemmy, we'll see. Maybe a better-written competitor emerges, or maybe they get their act together, or maybe the world doesn't want a federated Reddit clone (although my personal bet is that it does and subreddits are sort of the centralized prototype of that). But there's no question that federation itself is useful in certain applications.

[stinkytaco]

True, though I'd say that email is a cautionary tale due to how centralized it's gotten. I guess I was referring to "second wave" federation, for lack of a better term. Federated replacements for social networks: Mastodon, Lemmy, Friendica, etc. I can't say if those will be as successful as email, just that an obsession with itself is a pretty normal part of the growth process. Part of what made reddit successful, especially early on, was people identifying themselves as reddit users.