[jojobas]

If you're thinking of federation in terms of "apps" yes it's doomed.

Like with email, you have to think about it in terms of "service".

The "gravitate to one provider" problem is there (as with gmail), but those who care can still have their own email services or use reasonable third parties.

The tragedy of course is that very few people care.

[evouga]

Well since circa mid-2010s the Internet is apps. Or app-like centralized web sites (like Hacker News).

People want to install a single “Lemmy” app on their phone that shows them all Lemmy content and lets them post to all instances, using a single account and a *simple* user interface. If Lemmy cannot provide that user experience (abstracting away the federation), then yes it is doomed.

[Arn_Thor]

I have been actively looking for alternatives since the Reddit API fiasco started but I just don't have time to sit down and grok Lemmy or any of the other federated instances. And I'd argue I'm more tech curious than most. If this is such an obstacle for me, I imagine very many people won't bother either.

[tspike]

Could someone smarter than me explain why we can’t use a Bittorrent-like protocol to achieve this effect with federated servers?

[mariusor]

If you think bittorrent like protocols are better suited for your usage, there are networks that use that: nostr and scuttlebut. They are not part of what people call the fediverse, because the underlying data format is different, but you can still try it.

To answer the question, and I have just a superficial understanding of the concept, the main issue with decentralized vs. federated protocols is that you have to store the whole (or quite a large chunk of the) social tree locally on your device. That's a lot of data that you don't really care about. It might be fine if you access the network from a computer with plenty of space, but a mobile device might be more problematic.

[assbuttbuttass]

There isn't even a single Reddit app. And the whole point of federation is that you can use a single account to post on any instance

[jojobas]

Why would you post on many instances? Shouldn't you be posting on _your_ instance, that people you authorized can view?

[assbuttbuttass]

You make posts on a particular community (through your home instance), and federation means all the other instances will mirror your post

[jojobas]

Federation doesn't mean anything like that per se, you're talking detail of a particular implementation (I assume Mastodon but what do I know).

Federation just means multiple independent servers/domains can talk to each other, such as with email or Matrix, without the need for central authority (other than for discovering each other).

[mariusor]

The concept that you get wrong is that nobody mirrors content. Servers receive the content from the one of the original content creator, if they exist in its recipients list. Public content usually is distributed to all servers that the original server knows about. However it's always a PUSH of the content.

[assbuttbuttass]

How is that different from mirroring? I just meant the same content is available on multiple domains.

[StephenAmar]

The problem is that Twitter, reddit, and other social platforms are mostly read, not posted to.

[jojobas]

I suspect when you're saying "apps" you mean "companies". There has to be a better way.

[apocalyptic0n3]

I think it's worth pointing out here that we (on HN) are not average users.

I have had a number of actually average users asking me about the Reddit blackouts recently. Most of them don't know of Reddit beyond the first party app. 3 or 4 didn't even know Reddit had a website. None of them could even comprehend how you could use a third party app to access Reddit and their minds were blown when I told them that Reddit didn't have an app at all originally and the Reddit app today was originally Alien Blue.

For most people, the word "service" doesn't even enter into their minds. It's an app. It either does what they want or it doesn't. The inability for many in our group, including myself, to comprehend and understand this is why the fediverse, Linux, crypto for non-investment/gambling purposes, etc. continue to fail to gain much popularity. For most people, they don't care how it works... they only care that "it just works".