@thomas well popularity aside (compared to masto at least) the amount of Reddit alts is approaching the Twitter alts now (just much younger):
Lemmy
Kbin
Mbin (fork)
SubLinks
Piefed
Azorius
(Plus some I prob forgot)
And if forums count, NodeBB, with discourse coming (?) #threadiverse#fediverse
I just attended the "ActivityPub Based Forums and Threaded Discussions" call, and I really like their work on standardising the way, how forums federate.
I think the fedi needs to be more about clients/apps than it is currently.
Agreed, and I kinda touched on this earlier about how the #Threadiverse should've simply been a frontend where people just use their main fedi account instead of having to create another account for forums in a link aggregator... :sagume_think:
Tbh all the #fediverse implementations in the first place should've been backends first and foremost. Why should I not be able to have #Misskey's frontend in #Mastodon or #Pleroma? And the other way around too. This does mean that we will have to all agree on a common client API and MastoAPI will dominate, but I'd rather have Mastodon dictate client API than fediverse implementations. :seija_coffee:
Tbh I think the #Threadiverse like #Lemmy and #kbin would make a lot more sense if they were simply frontends and perhaps a backend too but just for the forums themselves. IOW, no accounts live in Lemmy or kbin, all users post from their preferred #fediverse account instead.
Sure you can already technically do that from your #Mastodon or #Misskey or whatever fedi you're in, but that means using whatever app you're on right now, which almost certainly means it's not a #linkaggregator UI. Not ideal at all.
If I had any good programming skills I'd make it so that the link aggregator is merely a client that uses the Mastodon (with #Pleroma extensions too) and Misskey APIs, treat (almost) all #ActivityPub actors as their own forums or subs, and each post would be a boost from said actor. Users authenticate from their preferred fedi account. Voting would be tallied by few special actors, which internally receive votes via direct messages (the app will make this transparent, but this also means you can technically vote without the app if you know the exact command), which will effectively make votes secret to non-admins like in #Reddit. Users can also choose which vote counters they want to rely from.
This would make the fediverse-powered link aggregator very flexible and minimal, imo. It may look janky but that's the general idea I have. :seija_coffee: