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I cannot get over the incredibly stupid ways in which ActivityPub / fediverse is being mismanaged.
The UX sucks & bad. No web developer in their right mind is going to say "Hey, lets add Share With Mastodon buttons on our pages". I saw one site that did and it prompts users to enter the URL of their home instance before the share can go through.
If fedi is like Email, then why doesn't activitypub have a protocol prefix (like Email) to avoid this problem?!
@tasket Sounds like you really have a handle on what needs to be fixed. I'm not a programmer and only understand what you are saying at the most basic level. Since you know what needs to be done, why not do something about it?
@LilPecan A random programmer cannot jump in and fix issue 1.
The core fedi developers do have some pull with standard bodies, having gotten activitypub ratified as a W3C standard. The protocol prefix has to be defined as a standard before it can be effective. @atomicpoet
The other two are outside my area of expertise, although with some study I'm sure I could define what is required architecturally.
@atomicpoet I must admit that, in addition to just defining issues, this is also a fit of exasperation that the issues aren't a priority or even recognized.
We have just been shown without a doubt that fedi has the 'Desktop Linux' disease. We cannot even give it away for free to most people, and throngs of scared liberals would rather run into the arms of Russian crypto bros than camp here.
I’ve personally been of the belief that Mastodon was never going to win against Twitter. Too geeky. But the most important aspect about it is that it validates a concept.
Like Linux, ActivityPub will eventually power a lot of things. A lot of it might not even be what we consider “social media”. And that’s fine.
One other point, though, about development on the Fediverse—but also everywhere else: it’s like herding cats. Everyone thinks they have a good idea. Few people follow through with that good idea. And even fewer can convince others it is a good idea.
But eventually some of those ideas come to fruition now that ActivityPub is validated as a concept, and we’re seeing the fruits of that this month.
@atomicpoet Regular consumers are mostly using Android, otherwise there is no commonality in the GUIs they use (and they don't even know its Linux, even when its Android). That's not very empowering for them.
If you train an English or Law major on Linux in college, they're not going to feel their skills are transferable when they sit down at another Linux machine in a different institution. All the online help will be CLI based for the same reason: UI was deprecated as window dressing.
That’s where I think ActivityPub is going. Once it has a big enough network effect, devs will simply think, “Why am I building so much of social connectivity from scratch when there’s this library that makes things easier for me?”
Building the network effect is the hardest part of social media development, so if you don’t have to do this, that’s great.
Other thing is, do users need to know about ActivityPub to find it useful? Most of the people using Pixelfed are absolutely oblivious to decentralization, they’re just enjoying the vibe.
I’d like to see ActivityPub with recipe sharing, games, financial analysis, documentation—something as simple as commenting on documents.
devs will simply think, “Why am I building so much of social connectivity from scratch when there’s this library that makes things easier for me?”
Since you mentioned #Pixelfed :
https://pubkit.net/
@atomicpoet I guess my point is that FOSS people may or may not understand ecosystems that empower regular users (and so will foster power users)... but the ones that do all exist outside that Linux distro culture.
Fedi fell into it.
If you want to do something different on fedi, having a plugin isn't feasible... switching to a fork is the thing. With Linux, the app isn't enough, to run it well you'll be encouraged constantly to distro-hop.
But as a gamer, I love it.
I have SteamOS which frankly runs old Windows games better than modern Windows. It “consolizes” those Windows games too, making them workable on a *handheld*—which is not achievable on an app.
Then I have an arcade cabinet that runs on Batocera. Can I run this thing with Windows? Not on your life. But someone made a Linux distro that’s entirely controllable with an arcade joystick.
And again, this is where I think ActivityPub is headed. People will look at use cases they want, which cannot fit with Big Social, and ActivityPub will fit that specific use case.
@atomicpoet I believe in accessible technology, and the personal computer. Keeping things geeky can mean keeping most people out.
When people can't identify what something is, its utility diminishes and it becomes less accessible. AP can reduce the cost of integrating social media into a clothes dryer or pogo stick, but the power of that protocol will be in the hands of the intermediaries who are updating the firmwares.
@atomicpoet Users could conceivably prevent that control if they also use the protocol on their PCs and phones, but there is no protocol handler that will encourage AP use from various apps, and no user recognition where they would even think to try. More likely, you would get an array of isolated, OEM controlled instances and consumers would develop a distaste of anything with that whiff of Mastodon in it.
@tasket So I have a personal experience that I think is somewhat relevant to this discussion.
In the late 90s/early ‘00s, I was an early adopter of desktop Linux. My first distro was Slackware. I got on board with it because I was super into the FLOSS ideology, and was willing to eschew creature comforts in favour of the cause. If I had to compile from source, so be it. I definitely did, and learned a lot about *nix in the process. But nevertheless, I was suffering – Linux was terrible for gaming.
But around 2013, I finally had enough. I said, “You know what? All I want to do is play computer games again, and if I have to deal with the dreaded Windows, I’ll do that.”
And Windows was especially attractive at the time because of all the neat things Valve was doing with Steam – which made the platform more appealing than a console.
For almost a decade, I was happy with Windows and didn’t want to go back to Linux.
Then in 2022, Valve released the Steam Deck. It runs on Linux. I thought, “You know what? This game will probably only play 10% of my library, but if that means those games are now on a handheld, I can do that.”
So I bought one.
Well, as it turns out, the Steam Deck plays 98% of all my games. And I own more than 7,000 games. I didn’t intend to return to Linux, but here I am.
And not just me. People who don’t give a damn about Linux are using the Steam Deck. It is probably the most influential innovation in PCs of the current decade.
It took desktop Linux nearly 30 years to get good enough at gaming to appeal to non-geeks who just want to play a game. And now, one of the most desirable PCs at the most recent CES was the handheld Lenovo Legion Go S – which runs desktop Linux.
The thing about FLOSS is that, almost always, it appeals to the geeks first – and geeks tend to prize features over UI/UX.
For example, recently I was talking about Pixelfed, and I got a reply from someone who said, “Why do we need that when I can do image sharing on Mastodon?” That fellow clearly doesn’t understand the appeal of UI/UX because all he sees are features.
But people who aren’t geeks? They’re using Pixelfed, and they’re absolutely oblivious that the service has any connection to Mastodon. All they know is, “Here’s something that looks pretty and is easy to use – and hey, people with email-like addresses are liking and commenting on my stuff.”
However, even those people coming to Pixelfed right now, I don’t think they’ll trigger a movement away from Instagram. They’re just people who are willing to eschew creature comforts to give Meta the middle finger – and they may return because of those creature comforts.
But at some point, the Fediverse will serve a need that Big Social can’t. That’s because, as big as Big Social is, they can’t serve every need. And when they try, they typically take the Microsoft-like approach of generalists.
Elon Musk is unlikely to make, “Twitter but for e-sports.” Some small video game studio probably can, and they’ll want to make it in the easiest way possible.
This ain’t the vision of replacing Twitter with something that’s exactly like Twitter, but not run by Musk. But it is a vision that grows social media beyond Twitter and Meta.