Gregory's Server
Decentralization isn't everything. It's not the goal in itself. There is a long tail of product design decisions that make or break a platform (which is why I find it kind of silly that Bluesky spent 2 years arguing over protocol design, though that's a different story). But that point is that decentralization is the foundation for a viable platform. Without it you're doomed to repeat the path of hundreds of social media apps of the past... Just a different paint on the same exact structure.
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6 comments
Clairement crevée
@Gargron personally, i do think decentralization is important, and i'm glad Mastodon is decentralized however, i'm not completely sure decentralization is absolutely necessary for a viable platform furthermore, decentralization, and especially federation, does come with different tradeoffs, and i don't think sweeping them under the rug does anyone any good
Piero Bosio
I think decentralization is important. One of the fundamental protocols for the functioning of the Internet and the Web is DNS which is a decentralized and distributed protocol. I think Mastodon in a future version could interact with the DNS protocol. For example, those who own a domain name could enter public keys or information about the instances to which they are enrolled in the TXT record.  |
@Gargron Totally agree. Thank you for all your work on Mastodon.
They (Cohost) think they're better because they're nonprofit, but there are plenty of bad nonprofits. I mean, just look at all the problems with philanthropy.
Profit or not, by creating a closed platform, they're looking to put themselves in a position of dominating other people, if Cohost is successful.