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That isn't centralization. That's the essence of federation. It's literally how Mastodon is intended to work. And the whole point is that if you don't agree
by BaseballPhysics 4y ago
That isn't centralization. That's the essence of federation. It's literally how Mastodon is intended to work.
And the whole point is that if you don't agree with how an instance is being run or moderated, you can migrate to a different instance or stand up your own.
Now, it is notable that a lot of the fediverse is concentrated in certain large instances (e.g. mastodon.social). Bu that kind of concentration is not itself an evil so long as people have the freedom to move around. Closed off, walled gardens are the problem.
- saurik 4y agoI want to agree with you, but then I hear about the concept of "defederating" and how small instances are subject to a ton of scrutiny and might even be blocked by some large instances by default, and I see this as a concentration of power--akin to "Google and Microsoft get to decide who can send e-mail and you are an idiot to run your own mail server"--more than as a mere happenstance of decentralized systems being (of course) made up of centralized endpoints.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- BaseballPhysics 4y agoFirst, I've never heard of "small instances [being] subject to a ton of scrutiny [or being] blocked by some large instances by default", so I'm not sure where that's coming from. Regardless, which is better: A federation where, yeah, there might be a bit of drama over who blocks whom, but each instance can set its own policy? Or a single private entity controlling the entire platform? You cannot solve the problem you're highlighting with technology. What you're describing is the human consequences of people exercising their freedom of association. But what you can do is place that freedom in the hands of the community, and I struggle to see how that is anything but a definite improvement over the current status quo.