Why the Fediverse will Never Succeed

Posted on by Robin

The idea is a very good one: Federated instead of Centralized, free and open-source software, anyone can run their own instance and federate with all (or some) of the others. Like the old dial-in BBSes of yesteryear before the Internet took off, it’s just a bunch of networked home servers. Sharing among peers, not some big, corporate, centralized proprietary platform. This should have taken off and virtually replaced the big sites like Fakebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

(a) is Centralized, (b) is “decentralized, and (c) is distributed (like the Fediverse)

This is Peer-to-Peer (P2P) stuff that gives people control of their own content instead of making it the property of the service provider. It doesn’t market user information to advertisers and turn it’s users into a commodity to be bought and sold. Examples of platforms like this are diaspora*, friendica, hubzilla, mastodon, pleuroma, funkwhale, writefreely, and more.

This should have exploded all over the place and practically driven the big corporate social media sites out of the market!

But it didn’t, it hasn’t, and it won’t.

Here is why:

As the administrator of my own instance, I might choose to block other instances for whatever reason. I wouldn’t want my users to have access to pornography, for example, or far-left (or far-right) political crap, pro-hate stuff, Nazi stuff, etc. So I might choose to block “diaspora.hitler-was-right.com” (a fictional example) from my own diaspora instance. Hey, it’s my server, I’ll do what I want with it. You want that Nazi shit? Find a Nazi instance and knock yourself out. My server, my rules.

A huge majority of Fediverse servers are run by “left-leaning” administrators, and it has become standard operating procedure for them to block entire instances if even one user expresses an opinion, a data set, a meme, whatever that offends the administrator. The result has become that most Fediverse instances are hostile to my political leanings and religion.

That is why Mastodon – the most successful of the Fediverse platforms – has been forked a half-dozen times or more into Gab, TruthSocial, and others. No longer P2P and no longer federated (distributed), these platforms leave the Fediverse and go it alone. And with considerable success.

On a diaspora* support form I asked about an installation script, in which I might change the Terms of Service to forbid porn, anarchy, violence, pro-LGBTQIAP content, etc. The reply:

If you’re going to run a right-wing instance, let us know the URL so we can all block you.

That’s the attitude.

And that’s why the Fediverse cannot succeed.

Why Haven’t Friendica and Diaspora Been Forked like Mastodon has?

Posted on by Robin

We have seen Mastodon software forked or adapted for use on platforms like Parler and Truth Social. Their software is based on the free and open-source Mastodon software. Everyone seems to be okay with it. Even Zuckerberg’s Meta (Facebook, Instagram) uses it in their newest venture, Threads. So Zuck has made intrusions into the Fediverse by adapting some Fediverse software.

Having recently been kicked off a Friendica server for daring to express my conservative views, I wonder why some other great Fediverse software (Diaspora, Friendica, Hubzilla, etc) hasn’t been copied, adapted, or forked in the same way that Mastodon software was.

If I was a coder who could do it, I would adapt Diaspora software so that it wasn’t necessary to federate with any other servers, and run it on a huge central megaserver like Fakebook does. Probably with ads and the ability to opt out of ads with a paid membership. You can already do that with Friendica, as there isn’t any requirement to federate with other Friendica instances. You can run your own private, invitation-only social media instance without the requirement to federate with stupid Friendica nodes like the one that kicked me to the curb for my politically incorrect posts.

Fediverse Trend?

Posted on by Robin

A Fediverse user on Mastodon (gyptasy) asked an interesting question:

The Great Fediverse Exodus: What’s Really Happening?
Yes, you read that right. While the overall numbers might suggest growth, a deeper look reveals a worrying trend: the monthly active users on the Fediverse have plummeted to half of what they once were. Even the big profiles are feeling the pinch with dwindling interactions. Could it be that the Fediverse honeymoon is over?

Meanwhile, Twitter/X is seeing a resurgence. More and more users are flocking back, reigniting the platform with a surge of interactions. Is this the beginning of the end for the Fediverse, or just a bump in the road?

Let’s hear your thoughts!

I suggest three things that may help explain what this “tweeter” thinks may be a trend:

Perhaps people don’t participate as they once did, checking in a couple of times a day as we did when this was all new and exciting to us. One of the things that makes “the Fediverse” wonderful for me is that you build your own experience. Diaspora doesn’t suggest “people you may know” and “stuff you might like.” I found friendships and stuff I like without the algorithms and spyware on the commercial sites. I love my diaspora!

Here’s what I think may be happening. The different platforms all offer a very different experience. I have tried a few others and found that they are either

  • full of features I would rarely or never care to use, just making the interface a jumble of confusion, or
  • built to serve only particular interests or communities. They become echo chambers for whatever group of people so it’s FRACTURED like crazy.

Friendica and especially Hubzilla are examples of the first point. Feature-rich, which is wonderful for many users, but bewildering for those of us who are just looking to read and comment and post like we did on Fakebook or Google Groups before we made our way here. Simplicity is the reason I abandoned my Friendica and Hubzilla accounts and just stick with diaspora*. I didn’t leave the Fediverse, I simply experimented with other platforms, didn’t like them, and abandoned my accounts there (after trying to delete them) to settle on the one platform I really like.

Another reason: Not many of the younger generation even own a desktop or laptop computer anymore, which most of these platforms are made for. We’re all on phones or iPads these days. While mobile apps are available for all of the Fediverse platforms, most don’t offer all the cool features available to desktop users. This kinda makes all the cool gadgets and gizmos irrelevant to mobile users. Most of the mobile apps are just “wraps” for whatever browser a mobile user has on his or her phone anyway, and mobile browsers don’t have all the cool gadgets and gizmos you find on a computer with a full web browser.

Are people “leaving” the Fediverse and running back to the big proprietary platforms? I don’t see it that way at all. But to a long-time desktop user like “Gyptazy,” it must appear so.