How is the Fedi NOT going to end up like email is today (ie, Gmail, outlook, employers and fringes)?
Not sure I’ve seen anyone talk about this much? With the spam incidents, talk of allow-list federation modes and the seemingly natural tendency for big instances (ATM, ~30% all MAU), and you know, threads/meta joining … it seems like an unsurprising outcome especially should the user base increase.
Single user instances already seem painful enough to not be worth it for even many who can.
I don’t run one, so only going off others’ reports. Main thing seems to be that it kills public square dynamics. Fedi being fedi, a single-user instance is more like an RSS feed agg and blog. So you have to manage the instance and figure out how to use relays for “pub sq” content, which I’m sure kills the “independent instance” vibe.
Groups like on lemmy don’t have this problem interestingly, though searching for groups/communities can be painful.
Fixing? Dunno, seems kinda baked into the nature of AP ATM. Maybe a hosting service that provides more than infra for you instance but services like relays etc, which should get easier with more users. Interestingly, that, IMO heads toward BlueSky territory.
Otherwise, groups and some backfilling of replies would probably go a long way. Akkoma does backfilling of replies right?
In the end, single-user instances seem more like hosting a blog than owning your social media presence in a public square style social media.
Many probably thought the Fedi/mastodon offered both, but that seems untrue, and joining a particular instance isn’t for everyone either … thus decentralisation can’t be a drop in replacement and isn’t simply better.
Single-user (micro-)blogging plus groups though? I keep hitting this as the natural sweet spot for AP.
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