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They're kind-of falling into the trap that a lot of Bitcoin proponents have. Decentralization is great for limiting the control of a single entity. A centrali

by Lerc 3y ago

They're kind-of falling into the trap that a lot of Bitcoin proponents have. Decentralization is great for limiting the control of a single entity. A centralized service is still much more usable. The approach you suggest is, I believe, the answer. Provide a service that makes it all seem like one thing. The user doesn't have to know unless the centralizer misbehaves, but if that happens the decentralized back end would allow people to go elsewhere, In-turn the ability to go elsewhere keeps the centralizer honest. The same could maybe be done with Bitcoin. Perhaps one day, after all of the hype and snake-oil fades away there might be entities that do a similar service hiding the back-end. We'd probably call them Banks.

croutonwagon 3y ago
> A centralized service is still much more usable. There are some tweaks and modifications that can make the decentralized nature of these services still appear centralized. Specific to lemmy adding the ability to categorize communities and sort by said categories (ala multireddits) would go a long way. Additionally adding some type of search in the sidebar to find other like communities would help. There’s already some bookmarked etc that will modify URLs to format them to your instance correctly. I would bet this gets committed to the core UI app at some point. Making sign ups easier would go a long way too. Some of the drama with bigger instances defederating will help sort this out. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a proxies sign up service that will randomly put you on an instance once most of the above is sorted. Finally, being able to transfer your account will be huge. Keep in mind some of these services are brand new (ie: Kbin) And others are seeing very rapid growth that’s helping them mature quickly (ie: lemmy).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jeena 3y ago
For chat-like services I am hosting my own Matrix server with all the bridges to WhatsApp, Signal, Discourse, Slack, Telegram, etc. the UX is not perfect yet but it works well enough that I to 95% don't open the original apps/websites anymore.
- tetris11 3y ago
  > bridges to WhatsApp https://element.io/blog/ems-launches-fully-managed-matrix-bridging-for-whatsapp/ https://element.io/blog/ems-launches-fully-managed-matrix-br... I did nor know this was a thing...! Game changer.
  - xethos 3y ago
    Absolutely the bridges are a thing. Facebook Messenger is aggressive about kicking users that are using Facebook's app, Google Chat isn't amaaazing about the sign-in flow currently, and Signal was deeply unhappy with me last I tried (possibly due to using a VoIP number), but overall, my chats follow me everywhere. Regardless of whether I grab my Pinephone or BlackBerry (whichever is charged), all my messages just follow along with a single sign on. It's fantastic :)
- predictabl3 3y ago
  Add jmp.chat in the mix (sms, mms, group mms) and literally every chat network I use is covered by a server and network that I control, with a variety of clients. I expect eventually jmp.chat will bridge SIP invites and I'll have legacy phone call support for the 12 phone calls I make/recieve a year. Matrix is somehow absent in all of these federation conversations. Maybe because it's quietly ... working in spite of all the noise that federated platforms are untenable. (See my other comment for how Matrix's federation is resilient to home server outages, etc. Federation FTW)
dragontamer 3y ago
No one is decentralizing for the sake of it. People are decentralizing because it gets damn expensive to run more than 100,000+ users (or so) on a single server that is owned by a hobbyist / part-time sysadmin. By decentralizing, it becomes possible to run your own community of 10k to 100k people. Which is plenty large enough for most people's purposes. 100k active monthly users is going to be far larger than most subreddits. Even large subreddits, like /r/hardware, only had ~10,000 monthly active users or so, if I remember the sidebar statistics. So you can run your own instance today on bog-standard servers using one of these OSS software packages.
- kaba0 3y ago
  > People are decentralizing because it gets damn expensive to run more than 100,000+ users (or so) on a single server that is owned by a hobbyist / part-time sysadmin. Is it? If only a tint percentage of the userbase would donate some negligible amount, it can run indefinitely. Computers are insanely cheap compared to the possible value they can produce. Also, if they wouldn’t put random websocket connections for no good reason than it would scale much better (khm, lemmy)
- user_named 3y ago
  This is really revisionist. I have never ever heard pro-decentralization people argue that centralization is too expensive. No, the argument is focused on power.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    Arguments online don't really matter that much. $10/month to $1000/month is something that can be afforded by various hobbyists. There are limitations to what small money can accomplish, but these limitations are far larger than people may expect. Running your own https://blah.foobar.com https://blah.foobar.com community is about what you can accomplish with your two hands. ---------------- No one can make a "Reddit clone" by themselves, and its impossible to expect a $10/server to handle any kind of realistic traffic. But if you're just aiming for a boutique instance for your guildmates in WoW to hang out (and maybe federate over to a few niche Lemmy-instances like https://programming.dev https://programming.dev), that's well within the budget of small hobbyist weekend project.
topranks 3y ago
There is a key difference with Bitcoin though, which in attempts to be completely flat and under no single entity’s control. In contrast, Federated systems like lenmy/mastodon are connected islands, each under some person or organisation’s control (and moderation). Bitcoin is massively wasteful of energy due to its design, and hopelessly limited in terms of capacity and scalability. It puts itself beyond the reach of law enforcement and any requirement to conform to societal norms. The Fediverse has challenges too, but the fundamental difference is it’s not trying to replace trust in people with an algorithm.
xinayder 3y ago
Back when I first heard about gnu social (the predecessor to Mastodon), there were 2 apps for Android that worked with both Twitter and ActivityPub. AndStatus and Twidere. It was seamless, the only way you could tell something was federated was by looking at the domain name on the user handle, other than this there was little to no difference.
BizarroLand 3y ago
I think what would be better would be a centralized identifier that is ratified and federated and approved by the federated systems. (This could be a plausible use of blockchain). If they would incorporate that, then you could have the same identity regardless of what decentralized server you were on. Perhaps that would be a useful tool. Federated Centralization. Recreate the utility of FB/ Twitter / Google sign on without giving your data to tech conglomerates. You could even make it so that each site shares a unique sign in key so that you are the only person with the information of the main key and that would make it harder to trace back user info to the defederated central server system.

by Lerc 3y ago

croutonwagon 3y ago

> A centralized service is still much more usable. There are some tweaks and modifications that can make the decentralized nature of these services still appear centralized. Specific to lemmy adding the ability to categorize communities and sort by said categories (ala multireddits) would go a long way. Additionally adding some type of search in the sidebar to find other like communities would help. There’s already some bookmarked etc that will modify URLs to format them to your instance correctly. I would bet this gets committed to the core UI app at some point. Making sign ups easier would go a long way too. Some of the drama with bigger instances defederating will help sort this out. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a proxies sign up service that will randomly put you on an instance once most of the above is sorted. Finally, being able to transfer your account will be huge. Keep in mind some of these services are brand new (ie: Kbin) And others are seeing very rapid growth that’s helping them mature quickly (ie: lemmy).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jeena 3y ago

For chat-like services I am hosting my own Matrix server with all the bridges to WhatsApp, Signal, Discourse, Slack, Telegram, etc. the UX is not perfect yet but it works well enough that I to 95% don't open the original apps/websites anymore.

tetris11 3y ago
> bridges to WhatsApp https://element.io/blog/ems-launches-fully-managed-matrix-bridging-for-whatsapp/ https://element.io/blog/ems-launches-fully-managed-matrix-br... I did nor know this was a thing...! Game changer.
- xethos 3y ago
  Absolutely the bridges are a thing. Facebook Messenger is aggressive about kicking users that are using Facebook's app, Google Chat isn't amaaazing about the sign-in flow currently, and Signal was deeply unhappy with me last I tried (possibly due to using a VoIP number), but overall, my chats follow me everywhere. Regardless of whether I grab my Pinephone or BlackBerry (whichever is charged), all my messages just follow along with a single sign on. It's fantastic :)
predictabl3 3y ago
Add jmp.chat in the mix (sms, mms, group mms) and literally every chat network I use is covered by a server and network that I control, with a variety of clients. I expect eventually jmp.chat will bridge SIP invites and I'll have legacy phone call support for the 12 phone calls I make/recieve a year. Matrix is somehow absent in all of these federation conversations. Maybe because it's quietly ... working in spite of all the noise that federated platforms are untenable. (See my other comment for how Matrix's federation is resilient to home server outages, etc. Federation FTW)

dragontamer 3y ago

No one is decentralizing for the sake of it. People are decentralizing because it gets damn expensive to run more than 100,000+ users (or so) on a single server that is owned by a hobbyist / part-time sysadmin. By decentralizing, it becomes possible to run your own community of 10k to 100k people. Which is plenty large enough for most people's purposes. 100k active monthly users is going to be far larger than most subreddits. Even large subreddits, like /r/hardware, only had ~10,000 monthly active users or so, if I remember the sidebar statistics. So you can run your own instance today on bog-standard servers using one of these OSS software packages.

kaba0 3y ago
> People are decentralizing because it gets damn expensive to run more than 100,000+ users (or so) on a single server that is owned by a hobbyist / part-time sysadmin. Is it? If only a tint percentage of the userbase would donate some negligible amount, it can run indefinitely. Computers are insanely cheap compared to the possible value they can produce. Also, if they wouldn’t put random websocket connections for no good reason than it would scale much better (khm, lemmy)
user_named 3y ago
This is really revisionist. I have never ever heard pro-decentralization people argue that centralization is too expensive. No, the argument is focused on power.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  Arguments online don't really matter that much. $10/month to $1000/month is something that can be afforded by various hobbyists. There are limitations to what small money can accomplish, but these limitations are far larger than people may expect. Running your own https://blah.foobar.com https://blah.foobar.com community is about what you can accomplish with your two hands. ---------------- No one can make a "Reddit clone" by themselves, and its impossible to expect a $10/server to handle any kind of realistic traffic. But if you're just aiming for a boutique instance for your guildmates in WoW to hang out (and maybe federate over to a few niche Lemmy-instances like https://programming.dev https://programming.dev), that's well within the budget of small hobbyist weekend project.

topranks 3y ago

There is a key difference with Bitcoin though, which in attempts to be completely flat and under no single entity’s control. In contrast, Federated systems like lenmy/mastodon are connected islands, each under some person or organisation’s control (and moderation). Bitcoin is massively wasteful of energy due to its design, and hopelessly limited in terms of capacity and scalability. It puts itself beyond the reach of law enforcement and any requirement to conform to societal norms. The Fediverse has challenges too, but the fundamental difference is it’s not trying to replace trust in people with an algorithm.

xinayder 3y ago

Back when I first heard about gnu social (the predecessor to Mastodon), there were 2 apps for Android that worked with both Twitter and ActivityPub. AndStatus and Twidere. It was seamless, the only way you could tell something was federated was by looking at the domain name on the user handle, other than this there was little to no difference.

BizarroLand 3y ago

I think what would be better would be a centralized identifier that is ratified and federated and approved by the federated systems. (This could be a plausible use of blockchain). If they would incorporate that, then you could have the same identity regardless of what decentralized server you were on. Perhaps that would be a useful tool. Federated Centralization. Recreate the utility of FB/ Twitter / Google sign on without giving your data to tech conglomerates. You could even make it so that each site shares a unique sign in key so that you are the only person with the information of the main key and that would make it harder to trace back user info to the defederated central server system.