eqdw"No globally unique usernames across federated universe" This is a feature not a bug!
Globally unique usernames require a single source of truth. Single source of truth requires centralized authority. You literally cannot have both
gled - MIGRATED@eqdw actually you could, by taking advantage of the federation, for example by using a blockchain inspired datastore to actually store the usernames or to exchange them between instances, IE amending the protocol to support that 'feature'.
But it becomes complicated and almost impractical to code and scale, and there's way more important to do now IMHO.
@gled Using the blockchain still requires individual node operators to respect the blockchain. What mechanism do you have to deal with it when someone decides to just ignore it?
Bitcoin solves this problem by making the financial incentive strong enough that people don't ignore it (fork the chain). Where is the incentive here?
@eqdw the incentive is easy, no respect = no federation.
It creates also other problems ( possible delays to register a new user to make sure the username is unique, need to create a mechanism of verification that a node is playing fair, etc... ).
In the end, yes it would be easier to onboard new users and facilitate search of users, but I'm not sure it is really worth it.