I don’t know what Cohost was but I’m pessimistic about Lemmy these days. Note that the link is to an article moaning about the centralization of sites like Reddit and that Cohost (whatever that was) failed because it was run by the same type of people. At first I didn’t click on the link because it says “audio” so I expected it to be audio and I didn’t feel like listening to one. It’s a written article though.
I’m pessimistic about Lemmy these days.
Why? The userbase is quite stable, and new platform are emerging (Piefed, Mbin), and more people are probably going to come the next time Reddit messes up
The instance system is confusing for new users and they might not even realize that they’re missing out on a lot of content by signing up to the wrong instance.
In the end it’s just a bunch of centralized websites sharing content if the admins feel like it and sure you can create your own instance but another admin can decide to defederated from yours anytime they feel like it, that’s still a lot of power in the hands of a single person…
Both front and back end need to be decentralized and also separated from each other. Make all content available to all and have people develop a UI to access it, let the users curate their feed.
This way people sign up on one page and can use the same credentials no matter what page they go to, the competition for front end devs is to offer the best UI, the development for the hosting part is what’s done as a community on GitHub or whatever…
I always point new users to Lemm.ee nowadays.
another admin can decide to defederated from yours anytime they feel like it, that’s still a lot of power in the hands of a single person…
All of the top 20 instances ask feedback from their communities before defederating. They know that if they don’t, people will switch instances in two clicks.
The issues are describing are real, but can be solved with better clients.
In the end it’s just a bunch of centralized websites sharing content if the admins feel like it
The whole point of the fediverse is having a choice of admin. That democratizes the space because people can choose where to go. The point is not to rid yourself of admins entirely (or at least not without just becoming your own admin, but then there is still an admin, it’s just yourself).
Make all content available to all and have people develop a UI to access it, let the users curate their feed.
Sorry but the vast majority of users are not interested in curating their feed. Most people don’t want to also be moderators. I mean fuck it’s difficult to even recruit mods for even medium-sized communities. Most people don’t like “absolute free speech” and want some level of moderation. Making all content available is not a path towards healthy platforms - it runs into the nazi bar problem instantaneously.
I won’t even comment on the herculean technical challenge of doing it in the way you describe, but even if it was possible, I don’t think it’s actually desirable. It sounds good on the surface, but that’s about it.
