Mastodawn

mcc Nov 29, 2022

The paradox of Mastodon is no one (not even mastodon.social) likes mastodon.social dominating the network, or Eugen G being the sole arbiter of extensions to the common protocol,

but on the other hand, ultimately, the reason we all use Mastodon (IE, the part of the Fediverse people think of as "Mastodon", modeled on the Mastodon extensions to ActivityPub) instead of Secure Scuttlebutt or identi.ca or whatever is because Mastodon was the AP implementation that had one person's singular vision.

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mcc Nov 29, 2022

We *need* standard protocols like ActivityPub, but ultimately, users do not want a protocol. People do not want a formless ball of infinite potential. They want "Products". They want a clearly presented thing that they can put into their web browser or phone and it slots them into a legible user flow satisfying a specific user story. This is not because they are brainwashed by capitalism. It is because most people *have other shit to do* and don't want to bother with software that's unfinished.

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Kumar McMillan

@mcc Slack supported the IRC and XMPP protocols until supporting them was too much of a drag on their own product innovation (so they said). This is the inevitable fork in the road. We’ll have to see how the fedi plays out!
To be fair, protocols always need escape hatches to survive. WebRTC has a free form data channel which is a good example. It allows custom, non standard features which seems fine.

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mcc Nov 29, 2022

@kumarvibe To me this just demonstrates how important it is to get the group decisionmaking right— when making something like the Mastodon/ActivityPub network you need to make sure no single actor gets a Slack-like level of importance such it can get away with concluding federation is no longer "worth it" per its goals. Or else they're definitely going to conclude it's not worth it! It's a ton of work!