*“…federated and decentralized are two ways of saying the same thing…”*
I *used* to think like that. So I set up two separate single-user instances, mostly because I could but also because I was thinking it’d speed up my selection process on which service to use (I ended up using both, and then some). I was thinking I contributed to the main goals of federation, which in my mind equaled decentralization. I was wrong.
I have since learnt though that the goals of Mastodon, the by far largest Fedi service, is not that. In the Fediverse we centralize, and are encouraged to do so, on just a handful of instances. They in turn federate with each other, so it is most definitely not the same as, say, Twitter et al, but it is also not encouraging *both* federation *and* decentralization.
In fact, if you (like you and I) are running your own single-user/small instance, there is a huge up-hill battle that will require/demand stamina, skills and to be able to endure lots (months) of lonely hours where literally no one replies to you (as you simply can’t be seen). A lot of how AP works, and Mastodons interpretation of it along with its default settings, directly punishes small instances in general, and even more so single-user instances.
The Fediverse is built around instances, not users. Those instances are meant to be central points that will forever grow with new users, and they federate with other known (big) instances.
The culture is that if you run a huge instance = great. If you run a small instance = you are likely a bad person. Join a big instance = congrats, just follow the rules set by someone else, and hope they don’t get burnt out and/or close you down. Start your own small instance = boooo.
morph (npub1hzk…ccy0)
m@thias.hellqui.st :verified-skull: /
npub1zj…szq0u
2024-05-23 11:19:35
in reply to nevent1q…msvx
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npub1zjlsclfq0nq8csh8mtap9qey9mhyp3em7nghljcw9hkhjpy5dt7qfszq0uPublished at
2024-05-23 11:19:35Event JSON
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"content": "*“…federated and decentralized are two ways of saying the same thing…”*\n\nI *used* to think like that. So I set up two separate single-user instances, mostly because I could but also because I was thinking it’d speed up my selection process on which service to use (I ended up using both, and then some). I was thinking I contributed to the main goals of federation, which in my mind equaled decentralization. I was wrong.\n\nI have since learnt though that the goals of Mastodon, the by far largest Fedi service, is not that. In the Fediverse we centralize, and are encouraged to do so, on just a handful of instances. They in turn federate with each other, so it is most definitely not the same as, say, Twitter et al, but it is also not encouraging *both* federation *and* decentralization.\n\nIn fact, if you (like you and I) are running your own single-user/small instance, there is a huge up-hill battle that will require/demand stamina, skills and to be able to endure lots (months) of lonely hours where literally no one replies to you (as you simply can’t be seen). A lot of how AP works, and Mastodons interpretation of it along with its default settings, directly punishes small instances in general, and even more so single-user instances.\n\nThe Fediverse is built around instances, not users. Those instances are meant to be central points that will forever grow with new users, and they federate with other known (big) instances. \n\nThe culture is that if you run a huge instance = great. If you run a small instance = you are likely a bad person. Join a big instance = congrats, just follow the rules set by someone else, and hope they don’t get burnt out and/or close you down. Start your own small instance = boooo.\n\nnostr:npub1hzk2l6stwp7y8jm6004g38mnfc7s84rr5ecnny27eep3uua50g4qcvccy0",
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