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With Mastodon, you are still at the mercy of whoever runs the instance you use. I expect most Mastodon instances will be shorter lived than Twitter. So changin

by TekMol 5y ago

With Mastodon, you are still at the mercy of whoever runs the instance you use. I expect most Mastodon instances will be shorter lived than Twitter. So changing from Twitter to Mastodon seems not like a good deal if I want my posts and the comments and likes I get to stay around.

hald 5y ago
You can run your own instance. It's probably not easy to do with Mastodon, but there's other server software aiming to be lightweight and easy to set up. Though I guess it will probably not be the normal way to use the fediverse in the near future.
- TekMol 5y ago
  I don't think self hosting will ever become the norm. I have decades in the IT industry, and I don't want to self host. As long as the majority does not self host their fediverse content, the fediverse is not a solution of the problem discussed in this HN story.
jll29 5y ago
For that reason, I'd prefer an architecture, where the users don't belong to individual servers, but a transparent fediverse, where a few thousand servers disappearing won't even get noticed. It would be important to ensure the integrity of the software running on such servers, though, perhaps via regular check of the binaries also at runtime.
- TekMol 5y ago
  Storing the data on a decentralized storage layer seems to achieve all of it and the tech is here now.
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    It really isn't. IPFS and the likes have to get pinned and pinning for federation still has issues. You'd need a descent amount of users and volunteers to keep something afloat.
    - TekMol 5y ago
      Arweave does not need pinning. You pay upfront for 200 years. 1GB is about $10. So storing a tweet is about $0.000001.
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        And what happens if they shut down? I might as well pay Google $10 for 2TB.
        TekMol 5y ago
        Arweave has the same mechanics as Bitcoin: It is based on financial incentives. While Bitcoin miners calculate hashes to get transaction fees, Arweave miners store data to get those fees paid upfront for storage. So the question "what happens in they shut down" is similar to asking "what happens if Bitcoin shuts down?". It is not a single party the suddenly can decide to "shut down".
        encryptluks2 5y ago
        Arweave is not Bitcoin. It isn't even close.

by TekMol 5y ago

hald 5y ago

You can run your own instance. It's probably not easy to do with Mastodon, but there's other server software aiming to be lightweight and easy to set up. Though I guess it will probably not be the normal way to use the fediverse in the near future.

TekMol 5y ago
I don't think self hosting will ever become the norm. I have decades in the IT industry, and I don't want to self host. As long as the majority does not self host their fediverse content, the fediverse is not a solution of the problem discussed in this HN story.

jll29 5y ago

For that reason, I'd prefer an architecture, where the users don't belong to individual servers, but a transparent fediverse, where a few thousand servers disappearing won't even get noticed. It would be important to ensure the integrity of the software running on such servers, though, perhaps via regular check of the binaries also at runtime.

TekMol 5y ago
Storing the data on a decentralized storage layer seems to achieve all of it and the tech is here now.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  It really isn't. IPFS and the likes have to get pinned and pinning for federation still has issues. You'd need a descent amount of users and volunteers to keep something afloat.
  - TekMol 5y ago
    Arweave does not need pinning. You pay upfront for 200 years. 1GB is about $10. So storing a tweet is about $0.000001.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      And what happens if they shut down? I might as well pay Google $10 for 2TB.
      - TekMol 5y ago
        Arweave has the same mechanics as Bitcoin: It is based on financial incentives. While Bitcoin miners calculate hashes to get transaction fees, Arweave miners store data to get those fees paid upfront for storage. So the question "what happens in they shut down" is similar to asking "what happens if Bitcoin shuts down?". It is not a single party the suddenly can decide to "shut down".
        encryptluks2 5y ago
        Arweave is not Bitcoin. It isn't even close.