4 ms·

Oh, it's very easy, really, but getting people to accept what it will take won't be. Don't make a federated protocol. Basically every issue with email can be t

• r3trohack3r 2y ago
  Email is not federated It is decentralized
  • TylerE 2y ago
    Email is absolutely federated. "A federated protocol is a protocol (defined next) that makes it possible for servers to communicate with each other, regardless of who is running those servers." Federated is not a synonym for Mastodon instance.
    • wnevets 2y ago
      "possible for servers to communicate with each other, regardless of who is running those servers." Wouldn't that definition include almost everything on the internet?
      • nephanth 2y ago
        In whuch sense? Like my backend and my db communicate together, but they're both run by me, so arguably they don't correspond to that sentence
      • kevindamm 2y ago
        I think it's important to distinguish between application layer and lower layers of the stack here. For the lower layers (firmware updates for protocol changes notwithstanding) it is basically all federated, as you say. But at the application layer there are protocols that you can participate in just by knowing the protocol, and others which require knowing a secret or getting included in trusted peers or otherwise filtered to effectively make them proprietary and not federated.
      • TylerE 2y ago
        No? For a start, it wouldn't include virtually every online game, or any protocol that enforces user sign in, like Discord or MS Teams.
        • wnevets 2y ago
          HTTP is a protocol that allow servers to communicate with each other, regardless of who is running those servers.
          • TylerE 2y ago
            No. HTTP is Client/Server, not Server/Server.
            • groestl 2y ago
              My servers beg to differ.
              • yellowapple 2y ago
                If your servers are making HTTP requests, then they are clients in the context of those requests.
                • Groxx 2y ago
                  So send a request in the opposite direction. Now both are servers, and they're communicating with servers. Server to server communication on http. (What would "server/server" even mean if you're making that distinction? Two communicating parties that only receive data, never sending it?)
                  • TylerE 2y ago
                    Something like database replication where they’re equal peers. Or an IRC network (the server to server parts of it).
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    • chuckadams 2y ago
      Federation implies delegation from a central authority, which makes Mastodon and ActivityPub more “confederated” than anything. Inasmuch that MX records stem from the root servers, email is federated that way, but otherwise it’s decentralized, with every MTA being its own authority. The line is fuzzy.
      • pseudalopex 2y ago
        Words in natural languages develop different meanings. The most common term for a protocol resembling a political confederation is federated.
• azinman2 2y ago
  That’s where its power comes in. We already have centralized communication systems.
  • immibis 2y ago
    and they are almost more powerful than email. Look how widely Discord is used, compared to email. Email might have more sites, but outside of corporate reminders, more communication happens on Discord.
    • ekianjo 2y ago
      and Discord can decide to make you pay for it whenever they want in one way or another. like every other proprietary service out there.
    • zaxomi 2y ago
      I can't register an account at discord, negate I'm behind CGNAT and someone else in the region was banned by discord.
      • immibis 2y ago
        I can't register an account at gmail, for the same reason. Not without providing a phone number that hasn't been used yet.
        • lelandbatey 2y ago
          And yet, you could try to register with: Yahoo Mail Hotmail Protonmail Fastmail AOL Etc. Meanwhile, if you can't use discord, then You're locked out of all of discord forever. And discord is like the 10th Gen of "hot new chat apps", what do we do when it starts to die (because Discord will probably start dieing in the next 10 years)? Just lose everything in all those discord groups, like we lost ICQ and MSN messenger and AIM and Skype?
    • azinman2 2y ago
      A quick google seems to suggest around 350 BILLION emails are sent PER DAY. The statistics I could find show discord has between 0.8 and 4B messages/day, and those will be far shorter in content than an email. It’s two orders of magnitude behind. Yes a good amount are spam, marketing, scams, etc. But that just comes with the fact that the platform is free and open. Very strange to me to make such a barrier with corp communication. That’s communication too, and most of these corps now have things like Slack aka Discord anyway.
• littlestymaar 2y ago
  The problem isn't the federated nature, it's the combination of: - loose standardization, and lack of proper versioning - Postel's law, which is a recioe for disaster Takeaway if you want to design a federated protocol use a “the server chose violence” approach and reject any messages that is not perfectly compliant with the expected input for the given version (which must be part of the protocol itself).
• lxgr 2y ago
  Basically every issue with purported email alternatives that various parties are trying to shove onto me (usually companies I need to communicate with for work or customer support purposes) is a direct result of them being non-federated, or that purported solution being SMS.