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Am I the only one who doesn't get why chosing a server is necesary? I just don't get it at all from a user experience perspective. Do we need to pick servers w

Am I the only one who doesn't get why chosing a server is necesary? I just don't get it at all from a user experience perspective. Do we need to pick servers with Bittorrent? no. Just tell it what file you want (magnet link). Do we need to pick servers with Tox? no. Just tell it what friend you want to talk to (contact ID). Or to pick a centralized example: do we need to pick a server on Twitter? no. duh. Then why is there any necesity or excuse ever to have to pick servers for "social" apps? Is this the 80's?! How do these "decentralized" advocates think they can get away with a "harder to use app with more steps"? Especially when it's not a technical necesity?

alex_duf 4y ago
You need to pick servers (providers) for emails. But we don't really think about it this much because we're used to it. The fediverse is built on a very similar type of network: federated servers, similarly to how gmail talks to yahoo and hotmail.
mcv 4y ago
You also have to pick a phone or email provider. Would you prefer if those had only a single option available? You don't pick a server with Bittorrent because it runs locally, which you can also do with Mastodon or other distributed networks. Though if you want others to be able to reach you, you probably need to set up a domain name and leave your server on. The problem with using a Bittorrent-like setup is that you don't have a persistent identity there. You don't need to pick a server for Twitter because there is only one. You have no choice. Mastodon and other distributed social networks offer choice. Imagine, if you didn't like how Twitter moderated their content, and you thought you could do that better, you could simply spin up your own Twitter server and still communicate with everybody on Twitter? But you're right that being forced to make this choice on little information is still an extra step, and not a great one. Maybe there should be a single default choice? Maybe assign one randomly for those who don't know? Because it honestly doesn't matter that much which server you pick. You can still see and follow everything. The only difference is really the moderation/blocking policy. Just pick a big one and you're probably fine.

alex_duf 4y ago

You need to pick servers (providers) for emails. But we don't really think about it this much because we're used to it. The fediverse is built on a very similar type of network: federated servers, similarly to how gmail talks to yahoo and hotmail.

mcv 4y ago

You also have to pick a phone or email provider. Would you prefer if those had only a single option available? You don't pick a server with Bittorrent because it runs locally, which you can also do with Mastodon or other distributed networks. Though if you want others to be able to reach you, you probably need to set up a domain name and leave your server on. The problem with using a Bittorrent-like setup is that you don't have a persistent identity there. You don't need to pick a server for Twitter because there is only one. You have no choice. Mastodon and other distributed social networks offer choice. Imagine, if you didn't like how Twitter moderated their content, and you thought you could do that better, you could simply spin up your own Twitter server and still communicate with everybody on Twitter? But you're right that being forced to make this choice on little information is still an extra step, and not a great one. Maybe there should be a single default choice? Maybe assign one randomly for those who don't know? Because it honestly doesn't matter that much which server you pick. You can still see and follow everything. The only difference is really the moderation/blocking policy. Just pick a big one and you're probably fine.