Gregory's Server@smitty That's very interesting. Federation was a feature but also a technical requirement of the original internet. It wasn't possible to have a single IRC or forum service. Even still, I'm sure it influenced communities.
When I joined an IRC server, I didn't have the expectation that I would be connected with people across servers. That's different to today where the reason I joined Mastodon was because I'm effectively connected with everyone. Federation day-to-day is transparent.
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@smitty My impression so far is that it feels like the original internet because it's populated with "my people". As others here have pointed out, that's how Twitter felt as well.
It'll be fascinating to see how federation influences Mastodon's evolution as more people enter the fold and compare that to what happened with Twitter. It's not going to be the same challenges but I'm sure there will be some interesting inflection points where federation plays a major role.
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