I think the major oversight Mastadon needs to correct is overlapping usernames. Whether federated or not, usernames should always be unique.
You can still be decentralized and not require a main database if you just force a degree of federation for the purposes of username sharing. Resolve conflicts by Creation timestamp.
The worst that can happen in this scenario is that a user creates an account and, a few minutes or hours later when federation catches up, they get prompted and informed that they must select a new username.
That seems...fine?
@deagle I struggle to see how that could work through a decentralized system with new instances spinning up and down all the time. Instances don't talk to each other by default.
I don't think this is a problem. Mastodon has introduced a new way to look at usernames and social media. :turtle:
David Eagle
bob