I was recently checking out the new fediverse.info (you should check it out, btw, it’s very well put together), and was struck by something as I was going through. Under the apps section, where users are prompted to pick an app, there is the question: “What do you want to do?”. It’s not a bad question, based on how the fediverse is structured. Each app has a niche, and so you need to pick an app based on the type of interaction you want to have.
However, what I noticed is that there is no “General” category. I.e., sites that do multiple of these things well. Sure, some sites might have some type of event functionality, and you can share images/videos on mastodon, lemmy and other microblogging/forum sites, but none of it is done to a standard that would make it your go to for any of those types of functions. So, it is necessary to say “what do you want to do” in order to guide people to the site that specializes in what they want.
Yet, this being the fediverse, all of these platforms can talk to each other. So does it have to be that way? Is there a way that we could move towards a more unified and multifunctional fediverse, vs a series of islands that each have different functionalities? What would that look like, and are there any platforms out there that are doing a more unified fediverse experience, specifically having a lot of different functionality/content types in one site/app?
I know people hate facebook comparisons, but I’m thinking of the level of different content/functionality that facebook has, posts, audience control, private/group messaging, groups, marketplace, events. This is the standard that is expected for social media these days. Can the fediverse live up to that expectation?
my eyes hurt at such heights of ai slop. the intention is good but lord that execution lacks taste
edit: talking about the site not your post
Feedback is welcome:
the neobrutalistic aesthetic of the landing page is nice but once I open the original page from the post it remains in that other style
What leads you to believe that it’s AI generated? The site is made by dansup who also works on Pixelfed and Loops.
its frontend is full of these AI-isms for frontend visuals and the text presented which makes me sad
I’m thinking of the level of different content/functionality that facebook has, posts, audience control, private/group messaging, groups, marketplace, events.
If you spend your time looking beyond the ‘mainstream’ fedi platforms this problem has been solved by a family of softwares, hubzilla has them all, streams, forte, friendica have more or less most of what you listed.
well, put up or shut up? we are all doin our best for freakin free
i picked mbin because it was the most broadly connecting platform, but it has its limitations… especially in the micro blogging arena.
youre welcome to contribute https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin
This seems needlessly combative. I think “what if we had a swiss army knife platform that integrated a lot of different functionality” is a perfectly fine question regardless of the asker’s inclination or ability to contribute to a platform’s development.
Happy Cake Day.
Yes, everything in the Fediverse can talk to each other. But not everything in the Fediverse gives its users the same features locally.
If you’re looking for something like Facebook, then Mastodon is crap because
- it’s too much of a tryhard Twitter clone
- you’re limited to 500 characters
- conversations are too loosely tied together from toots and more toots (as opposed to one post, many comments like literally everywhere outside old-school microblogging)
- no contact suggestions
- no dedicated profile fields, combined with no comparing your profile to other users’ profiles for ranking in the directory (would make it easy to find folks with the same interests and/or who live near you and/or who have contacts in common with you)
- most importantly, no support for groups whatsoever, not even for groups outside of Mastodon
Lemmy is just as much crap because it can only do groups, and you literally can’t follow/connect to specific users.
(streams) and Forte have everything you want minus marketplace. Hubzilla has everything you want minus marketplace and then a whole lot on top.
However: All three have the Eiger North Face of learning curves. There aren’t any dedicated phone apps for either. None of them work with Mastodon apps. You will have to use the Web interface, full stop (all three can be installed as PWAs, but next to nobody knows that PWAs exist, what they are and how to install them, and literally everyone wants a native mobile UI in the style of their phones). And there are next to no public, open-registration (streams) or Forte servers.
So there’s no “load app on your phone, name, maybe e-mail, password, there you go, default settings work perfectly for 99.9% of all users”.
And I say this as someone who has been using Hubzilla as a primary daily driver since both before Twitter was bought out and before Reddit was enshittified, and who also has two (streams) channels.
At the same time, not everyone is looking for a new Facebook. Many only want a Twitter replacement for dumb-dumbs; it’s actually Misskey or Sharkey although everyone’s only ever being pushed into Mastodon. Others only want “Reddit without enshittification, but otherwise literally Reddit” which is Lemmy. Others want “literally Instagram, but not owned by Mark Zuckerberg” which is Pixelfed.
None of them would be happy on that utter feature monster that’s Hubzilla. Hubzilla as a Twitter replacement is like you want a little boat with an outboard engine, and you’re offered the Queen Mary 2 (admittedly, with a rather well-written user manual and a helpful community).
Even if there were some multi- or omni-functional fediverse metaplatform, I think “what do you want to do” is still a valid question. Some people may want to host a public forum, others may want to host a private family chat, others may want to host and/or share images and video, still others may want to all those things and more with an all-in-one solution. I don’t think having a generalist platform would stop others from wanting to host niche or more specialized platforms for their own purposes; it all depends on what you want to do with your hardware.
With that said, I think it would be cool to have better interoperability between services. It’d be cool to have it so that if I make an account on a domain, I could hop easily between all the services hosted there. And it would be cool if it were easier for developers to make smaller services that can run on a general-purpose platform, and easier for admins to add and remove services as they wish, and maintain several services without it being an overwhelming hassle.
