This paper examines the potential of the Fediverse, a federated network of social media and content platforms, to counter the centralization and dominance of commercial platforms on the social Web. We gather evidence from the technology powering the Fediverse (especially the ActivityPub protocol), current statistical data regarding Fediverse user distribution over instances, and the status of two older, similar, decentralized technologies: e-mail and the Web. Our findings suggest that Fediverse will face significant challenges in fulfilling its decentralization promises, potentially hindering its ability to positively impact the social Web on a large scale.

Abstract

This paper examines the potential of the Fediverse, a federated network of social media and content platforms, to counter the centralization and dominance of commercial platforms on the social Web. We gather evidence from the technology powering the Fediverse (especially the ActivityPub protocol), current statistical data regarding Fediverse user distribution over instances, and the status of two older, similar, decentralized technologies: e-mail and the Web. Our findings suggest that Fediverse will face significant challenges in fulfilling its decentralization promises, potentially hindering its ability to positively impact the social Web on a large scale.

Some challenges mentioned in the paper:

  • Discoverability as there is no central or unified index
  • Complicated moderation efforts due to its decentralized nature
  • Interoperability between instances of different types (e.g., Lemmy and Funkwhale)
  • Concentration on a small number of large instances
  • The risk of commercial capture by Big Tech

What are your thoughts on this? And how could we make the Fediverse a better place for all to stay?

  • CoelacanthEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    That’s fair. I remember Firefish had a bunch of drama a while back and the main Firefish.social instance died, but I’m glad it has a stable and active dev team now. Someone else I was talking about this with recommended the upcoming Iceshrimp .NET rewrite, but I don’t know enough about these things to know the distinct advantages. Makes sense not to bother if migrating still breaks followers.

    • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Yeah the developer and firefish.social admin team had some sort of breakdown and basically fell off the internet and shit died.

      The Iceshrimp rewrite is theoretically great, but I’ve been in IT long enough that someone says “rewrite” I hear “might be useful in 3 or 4 years”.

      And yeah, migrating between platforms still basically doesn’t happen with activitypub stuff and I’d be surprised if that ever really gets fixed in a timeline that matters.

      (If you’re interested, you’re welcome to see if Firefish does the needful for you as my instance is open signups.)

      • CoelacanthEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        I think if you’re hosting your own instance you could theoretically migrate the whole instance and keep your followers, right? Though again, not relevant until a stable release and even then, if it works why change it.

        Even though my “main” account would have died with firefish.social I think I actually still have a Calckey.world account kicking around somewhere from when I looked at Firefish last, but thanks for the offer!

        • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.businessEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          There’s a server signature that’s unique to the install.

          You can kinda fake your way around it, but it still screws up federation and there’s not an Approved™ way to migrate stuff around that.