Fediverse

Like many others these kinds of initiatives trigger an urge with me to be dismissive, write a witty toot, send a meme, etc. And I'm guilty of doing so at various occasions.

But being a passionate advocate for the Fediverse to come to its full potential and thrive, I should avoid doing so. It contributes to a widespread complacency that fedi has established itself, is in a strong position, and will only continue to grow and prosper some more. This is far from where we are. The deeper I dive into all-things-fedi, the more my concerns for its future grows. There are serious threats and major challenges to overcome (I am going to add "complacency" as another challenge).

Though there are various threats for disruption, the currently popular apps - Mastodon in the lead - have least to fear. The 'microblogging-verse' is best established and can continue to grow significantly in numbers of fedizens participating. Entrance of new apps, application types, having new kinds of features, is where the biggest pain points are. Here fedi is evolving in a haphazard way that will destroy interoperability in the long run.

And then there are major features that are lacking (or at least not broadly adopted), like distributed / nomadic identity (Zap project have this). I see competing initiatives putting those first on the list, which is smart.

Whatever we think of narcisist billionaires, surveillance capitalist walled gardens, crypto bro-ism, vulture capital-driven startups, etcetera.. They may disrupt us, so we better monitor their tech.

A person like Jack Dorsey has a humongous network, could likely easily raise millions of bucks, and formate a group of expert developers that work fulltime on creating something not all too bad, and then create a big media hype to let it gain adoption.

We are millions of fedizens. It may be critical mass to get more good apps in the air and gaining popularity. But in numbers it is nothing, what a well-marketed competitor app + ecosystem might reach in a relatively short time.

This Web5 thing here, is in large part based on open standards that have been in development for a long time. Of course with Jack in the loop there's blockchain involved (the Ion project). But AFAICS all the DID and Verifiable Credentials stuff could also work without blockchain. I don't have a good overview of all the identity drafts and projects out there, but these standards may not be the worst to bet on for the future.