The Fediverse | A Stronger Internet

Author Topic: The Fediverse | A Stronger Internet  (Read 6218 times)





Pre-Ramble

So, let me try this again. I know I've shilled the fediverse many times before, and most of the time I end up explaining it like stuff, and most people don't seem to get it with the comparisons I've made. My "It's like EMAIL" example seems to be awful at explaining this, so I'll try to use more familiar ideas I guess.
Either way, on to the Introduction.


Introduction - Fediverse? Huh?

This is going to be kind of strange to explain. But it's kind of like if everyone could host their own youtube, or facebook. But you could all access eachothers pages and posts. Like they're able to grab and embed Youtube Videos onto other Youtube sites. "But there's only one youtube" Yes, but imagine it like this.

This is what Youtube currently looks like:



If Youtube were Federated it would look like this:


This is a fictional fediverse youtube site named : Youtubewithus.com

Youtubewithus.com is an Instance of Youtube.

Every video hosted on Youtubewithus.com can be found from any other Instance of Youtube. And any other instance hosting videos can be found on Youtubewithus.com

For example we see TVFilthyFrank@YTdark.net. Which is a channel hosted on the YTDark.net Instance. YTDark.net is a public Instance.
Public Instances allow any one to create a new account on their instance, under their rules and TOS of course.

Now lets look at UNICEF@UnicefYT.org. This is the UNICEF channel hosted on the UnicefYT.org instance. the UnicefYT.org Instance is private.
This Instance will only allow specific people to create accounts on their instance.


Why?

Well, there are several reasons. But the most obvious one is reliability. How often does Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit or your other standard social media network go down?
Often? Probably not, unless it's facebook. But when it does, it usually lasts a few hours. That may not sound like much, but when many of these networks used for businessses, this can
be catastrophic. In the fediverse, the ability to take down the entire network would take an insane amount of computational power, research and time.

There's also security. Recently Facebook had millions of accounts leaked, through a simple exploit. However, fediverse websites are not only-decentralized. They follow an open-source blue-print.
With enough eyeballs, every bug is squashed. If millions of developers were looking at facebook's source code, this exploit would've likely been fixed. And even if it hadn't, in a system of thousands of instances, no one
instance would hold every account.


Old Internet? Stop being nostalgic.

You're probably right that I'm harping on the past, but the old internet was, for the most part, better. Let me give you an example outside of websites.

Most games in the early 2000s on PC had a system where users hosted servers and maybe the original developer hosted a server-listing server.
Servers were community owned and driven overwhelmingly. However, today, most games centralize their entire server network inside their own company.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
Modern Halo MCC

These are two big examples in recent times. Even casual servers are owned by their development company. The same issues apply here.
If their servers go down, the game goes down. And eventually, these servers will go down for good. However, even to this day, it is possible to
run Halo CE, TF2, CS:GO, Unreal Gold and Minecraft servers (of various versions).

You are not locked into the servers that Microsoft, Valve or Epic create.

And this is similar into how in the Federated Youtube, you would not be locked into Youtube's own Instance.


Great, I bet it all looks like crap though, or it's unstable.

Not really, many federated social networks are fully functioning and look great. And on top of that, if you like an instance but not their website, you can use downloadable open source clients. Similar in how you can download the discord app.

Mastadon - Fediverse equivalent to Twitter


PeerTube - Fediverse equivalent to Youtube


Frendica - Fediverse equivalent to Facebook





You're probably right that I'm harping on the past, but the old internet was, for the most part, better. Let me give you an example outside of websites.

Most games in the early 2000s on PC had a system where users hosted servers and maybe the original developer hosted a server-listing server.
Servers were community owned and driven overwhelmingly. However, today, most games centralize their entire server network inside their own company

I don't think you are harping on the past, I think you are 100% correct here in your example. A big reason why games are hosted on massive corporate servers today is for reliability and security, but the major downside as you mentioned if a main server goes down there goes your "multiplayer" whereas hosting a server from your machine publicly you never have to worry about your server dying unless your own internet goes out. Oh, the days back when times were simpler and to the point. Nowadays you have a launcher that launches a launcher just to launch a game, google can't seem to get correct results anymore, they are making game consoles without disks and only giving you enough storage for a small collection of games, removing ethernet ports on laptops, oh and getting rid of DVD/CD bays on desktop cases but practically every motherboard you buy comes with a CD for the drivers.

the convenience of modern technology

« Last Edit: April 19, 2021, 02:26:51 PM by Goth77 »

The pipe-dream I currently have for the internet as it is, is something like this. A bunch of people basically communicating and "sharing" the internet, so it's totally decentralized. An even more vain hope of mine is that if this does somehow come to pass, that the internet reverts back to its wild-west ways of before the 2010's.

The pipe-dream I currently have for the internet as it is, is something like this. A bunch of people basically communicating and "sharing" the internet, so it's totally decentralized. An even more vain hope of mine is that if this does somehow come to pass, that the internet reverts back to its wild-west ways of before the 2010's.

All we need is:

A. Guerrilla marketing

B. Good Timing

C. Using every Failure of Big Tech

D. Exclusive Content

So lets start with A.

Memes. Seriously.

Just meme the forget out of these sites. Make formats, and if you really want to go the full mile.

Make the memes intertwine with parts b and c. Every Leak, DDoS and other failure they stub their
toe into, is a great point for the Fediverse. As they all can be avoided with a decentralized network.

B. Good Timing. Every time there is a DDoS attack, or a Leak, (especially leaks) convince your family members, and friends, they're not safe continuing to use an account on Facebook, Twitter or Youtube.

What if it goes down for good or has a major data loss? they might not believe you. But it's possible. Give them this link to make your point: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/04/02/how-one-man-could-have-deleted-every-video-on-youtube/

Don't necessarily convince them to jump, just get them on the alternate federated platform.

Once it happens again, just remind them of their alternate platform. And reinforce it with, "it's a good thing you had this."

Eventually there will be enough people using both platforms, it will become a set of battling platforms.

C. Censorship is big talking point from everyone across the spectrum. It used to be exclusively claimed to be as a Right-Wing talking point, however as it becomes more apparent that companies used censoring of a few as a stepping stone to censoring those who aren't "Advertiser Friendly" or profitable and taking up precious server space, or are in anyway against their monopoly. You will see more and more friends and family getting angry with their platforms.

Use this anger, convince them to jump, convince them to switch to the fediverse. Try to catch them right after any ban, temporary or permanent. Convince them to Jump or at the very least, hold a backup account. Next time they are banned, they will be more inclined to use these backup services.

D. Exclusive Content is the final nail in the Big tech coffin. Create content on Federated networks. Share that content on non-federated networks. If you're a consistent creator, make it clear your content will appear first on your federated network account (Mastadon, PeerTube, Frendica, etc.) alongside exclusive content not found on your non-federated accounts (Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, etc.).

If you want to go a step ahead, create a second account thats entirely exclusive to the fediverse.

If we start hitting a dueling-networks situation, then I'll explain the next steps we should take.

why is the logo a s*tan symbol

why is the logo a s*tan symbol
It's not.

That would be an upside down pentagram.



Ive started using mastadon more and more.