Fediverse

I think the author brings some interesting points, but ultimately I think it's a faulty premise.

The fediverse is whatever the user wants it to be. That's the whole point really. If you want a reliable communications platform with zero dropped messages, aka email 2.0, then you can definitely build that on the fediverse and people can join such a platform if that's what they want.

If that's not what you want... Well then don't join such a platform. Join another one. You do you.

We don't need anyone telling us how to communicate or consume content or whatever we want to do with the fediverse. The whole point of the fediverse is that everyone gets to decide for themselves, so there's no need to be prescriptive about any one approach.

Pixelfed was my own "gotcha" moment because I never understood Instagram in the first place, and, in my eyes, Pixelfed was no better. But if you take that route, Mastodon is no better than Twitter.

I mean, yes? That's the point? Pixelfed is an Instagram clone, Mastodon is a Twitter clone, Lemmy is a Reddit clone, etc, etc. They are social media, not messaging apps with additional functionality. The difference isn't how they work but who controls the data (and how enshittified the user experience is).

The author spent a lot of words discussing the, what seems to me obvious, point that you can't guarantee any particular person sees your social media posts. And ActivityPub is a protocol for replicating the social media experience. Always has been.

The problem with communication protocols was never the protocol part. It’s the communication part. A few sad humans never wanted to communicate in the first place and managed to become billionaires by convincing the rest of mankind that being entertained is better than communicating with other humans.

This is not a new argument, but the author is a bit confused with the terms. Usually it is phrased as "social network" Vs. "social media".

I feel like the author is being a tad dramatic about Pixelfed. I think the whole "can't see text posts" issue could be solve with a simple "Let me see text posts" toggle, either for the overall feed or hashtags, or account, whatever. The more customizable the better.

My second point is, expecting to have one account to see EVERYTHING on the Fediverse is insanity. Do you expect a Peertube account to read Mastodon posts? A Funkwhale that can look at Misskey? I think servives like Masto, wafrn, and misskey/sharkey should make efforts to have embeded posts from media based services like Peertube/Funkwhale, but different services have different purposes. Some people on Threadiverse (Lemmy, Piefed, mbin) probably don't even have Masto accounts. Pixelfed's main goal is to be similar to Instagram, a place to post pictures/images. Instagram doesn't do walls of text, but if you really wanted to just write words and screenshot it. But why try to make something that "does it all"? We're getting mad at Facebook for doing exactly that, they have games, vertical videos (Tiktok), marketplace, live streams, groups, instant messaging, and more bullcrap. Pixelfed deserves to exist just as much as Mastodon does.

My final point is, some people don't want to do a whole blog in addition to their pic. Tumblr has a healthy blend of image and text capability, and some people just do text while others just do pictures. Some people just want to post a picture and communicate through that. Why does text have to weigh heavier than images? I feel it's a bit unfair to make it sound like people only see brainrot and sensory overload on Insta/media-focused services. I miss many artists from Instagram and Twitter, I wish they'd migrate to Pixelfed or Masto.

I say this as someone who barely uses either Masto or Pixelfed, because it's far harder to find content I'm interested in on there compared to Threadiverse. Here, we have neat, ordered communities where you get what it says on the tin. But you have to work to find what you want everywhere else, which would feel rewarding if we had the people and content to back it up.

NGL, I too am ready to jump back onto listservs. I used to have several e-groups that got bought by Yahoo then mothballed years later. Still pissed off about that.

Then again, I cut the cord for cable TV in 1999 when I got cable internet, and never looked back.

Many journalists should feel called out by this.

Communicating is entertaining

So the main complaint is that Pixelfed clients don't display posts without images even if one has followed the poster? And thinks it incentivizes creation of using multiple accounts/apps when a single one to interact with ActivityPub would be better? That seems like a fair thing to criticize but it seems a little dramatic to paint it as entertainment killing communication.

Yeah I'm starting to think dansup projects aren't real fediverse projects since everyone seems to have issues with with them.