Gregory's ServerActivityPub everywhere?
That might very well be a medium-term consequence of Meta starting to implement it for their upcoming Twitter competitor.
Blogged. https://reb00ted.org/tech/20230628-activitypub-everywhere/
 5 comments
@bobwyman I agree "ActivityPub everywhere" would completely change the software categories that we have today (both in centralized social media, and in the fediverse) and open up room for entirely new experiences and solutions.  @J12t hello I am unsure about your reading of the regulatory triggers. Interoperability measures are introduced in the DMA and not the DSA. But more importantly they concern only messaging services. While the specific services have not been named, the discussion concerns services like WhatsApp and Matrix, not Instagram and Mastodon. For this reason #ActivityPub will most probably not be the protocol at the heart of #DMA messaging interoperability. #Matrix is a good candidate @tarkowski Thanks for the feedback and correction. I updated the posts. I agree that ActivityPub is not the natural choice if you start with WhatsApp, but it's in Meta's interest to delay interop of their multi-billion user apps for as long as possible, so it's must more likely they would start with a so-far zero-user app, and appease the regulators there. @tarkowski I consider Matrix somewhat unlikely as a choice of interop protocols, as large companies generally do not wish to touch any technology that they don't control, or failing that, isn't maintained by a well-understood standards organization. My understanding is that Matrix fails this test today. So I would think it would actually be more likely for them to adopt a version of ActivityPub as a "messaging app" interop protocol than Matrix. |
@J12t With "ActivityPub everywhere" innovators won't have to invest in audience building, they will instead be able to focus on delivering innovative and distinct user experiences. Rather than building the general clients needed to attract broad audiences, innovators may invest effort in addressing the needs of specific communities. Journalists, chemists, physicists, the blind, photographers, etc. all have distinct needs that could and should be addressed by specific clients or client-features.