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Pretty much in the title. Maybe you wouldn't even use it, but would like to simply see it exist for the sake of having a federated alternative.
For me, it'd be the following:
I am on the first two, but would prefer a federated alternative. I'm not on Tiktok, but would like to see a federated alternative.
I'll admit these might not be a good idea. But as a thought experiment, I'd be curious about the community weigh in on what you all think this might look like.
Tiktok
The problem with video content (even short videos) is, that it generates an absurd amount of traffic and needs lots and lots of local data storage. This is also why there are so few PeerTube instances.
PeerTube would be a way to publish your short clips, too. Not as specialized as TikTok, but still ...
Also tiktok really only makes sense with a big algorithm knowing what users want to see. Even if you were to follow many people, with the average video being only about 30 seconds long you won't have much content to enjoy. The whole short form video thing is kinda built on knowing what your user likes and doesn't. I don't know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
I don't know how you could design such a platform without some privacy concerns.
Yes, yes you could.
Companies like Google have successfully brainwashed us into believing that algorithms like this can only work on their server farms. The only reason those werver farms are necessary is becauwe they're processing data for millions of people.
We forget that in each of our hands we hold a device that is 5,000 x more powerful than a 1985 CRAY-2, at the time the world's fastest supercomputer. And let's not forget our home desktops and laptops, which are several times more powerful that that.
We each have devices with persistent internet connections that could be at work scanning, categorizing, and filtering personalized content for each of us, without giving any privacy away. It's only because we've been conditioned to be dependent on having our data centrally processed that we believe that's the only way.
Note, it is more efficient to process content centrally, where the data is stored. However, generalized categorization and content tagging with robust metadata and standardized APIs would address the efficiency. Given companies are unlikely to do this and scupper their own surveillance revenue, the next best thing is local, privacy-respecting, smart content filtering assistants.
Are you Richard from Silicon Valley TV show? :)
Tumblr
DeviantArt
Furaffinity
Archive Of Our Own
Keep the fediverse weird and invite more theater kids. They pair surprisingly well with the tech dorks that make up the majority of the current fedi population.
I'm an older theater kid!! And I do pair well with this site!!!
Same, actually.
I don't think the fediverse needs more platform alternatives.
What I really think we need is a way for people to use one fediverse account to log into different interfaces, so people can try out a new app / interface without starting a new account. Many apps can do this, but web apps generally cannot, they're generally tied to an instance.
This requires having an identity that is separate from an instance. This is what nostr does and why I prefer it over mastodon. It also means if your mastodon or lemmy instance closes up shop, you don't lose your post history, DMs, followers, etc.
That's not technically possible.
You could have one instance offer more than one platform, though, and you can already use multiple frontends with whatever instance you're on. Kbin, which you're on, actually tries to do the Swiss army knife thing IIRC.
Letterboxed - an app like bookwyrm, but for movies. I've seen other people talk about it and I think some people are working on it, but AFAIK nothing is up atm
Github
All the benefits of the network effect without the crippling reliance on a single MegaCorp to keep the lights on and not turn hostile like the owners of SourceForge, Reddit, and Freenode IRC.
Would also solve a problem I'm not hearing anyone at all talk about - what happens when the Gitlab / Gittea / whatever instances projects are hosting run out of money and go dark? Those sources are lost forever.
Youre in luck. Forgeo is a well maintained, self hosted gitea fork that is federated by design.
This is by no means a vital service, but Imgur. Not the image hosting part itself, although the multiple self-hosted alternatives available are mostly aimed at photographs and surprisingly very few if any to memes and reactions for chats, forums and social media. On the other hand, the particular use case of sharing memes and meme dumps is not being fulfilled by anything else at the moment. Go to Imgur even on it's current sorry decayed state and at any time you'll find multiple people sharing image galleries, usually of up to 50 memes at a time, sometimes more. Lemmy, Mastodon and Discord servers try to fill that gap but right now they can't.
There actually is a fediverse TikTok equivalent being developed! I'm not sure what the current status of it is, but it does already have rudimentary functionality. I bet the developer(s) might appreciate some help working on it, if anyone has the time/coding skills/money/etc to contribute. Somebody else mentioned Tumblr, and that exists too! So many cool projects being worked on, I regularly check this list to see what's new, and it's really heartwarming to see all the work people are putting into making the fediverse such a awesome place. There's even a Tinder-esque dating app!
Personally, equivalents I would love to see include:
No more "alternatives" please. That formula has failed over and over again. We want software that can do what proprietary platforms do not pursue because it's not profitable. Online spaces to build meaningful connections, have interesting conversations with like-minded people, discover new things, be free from trolls and toxicity, possibly without the guilt of polluting the hell out of this planet with hardware and excessive electricity consumption.
Example? I'm skeptical there's anything that both appeals to a reasonably large audience and isn't monetisable. I'm very skeptical you can do it with less toxicity and computation somehow.
Edit: I suppose dating sites might count. They're very much not optimised for actually finding good partners at this point, because gamified swipe dating keeps people hooked. Computation and toxicity are still pretty intractable.
to a reasonably large audience
That's a measure of success that makes sense only in a for-profit, growth-oriented environment. Software just has to be sustainable and "bigger" doesn't necessarily imply "more sustainable.
That said, what is now possible with social media is extremely restricted and our idea of what a social media is is constrained by profit motives. Social media could be much more, connect humans for collaboration and exchange instead of data extraction. We are so used to the little crumbs of positive experiences on social media that we normalized it.
Bonfire, for example, if we want to stick to the fediverse, is trying to challenge this narrative and push the boundaries of what a social media is supposed to do.
Another space would be non-siloed notion-like tools.
Anothe entire can of worms would be to go beyond the "dictatorship of the app" and start building software and UX around flexibility and customizability for the average user, rather than keeping this a privilege for tools targeting power users. Flexibility in UX means harder trackability and less CTR, so most end-user "apps" avoid that.
I don't want the fediverse to always be dictated by the private sector's ideas. I want someone to build the next "TikTok" on the fediverse to begin with, and for once have a generation whose "new thing" isn't controlled by a single corporation.
Well, I'd for one like to see something new. Not just another clone of an existing platform, since I don't really love any of the social media platforms. I'd like something that simultaneously connects me with friends and people all around the world. With communities like here, just more focused on positive and constructive engagement regarding different topics. Less picking on the news and less just replying if there's something wrong with what somebody said. I'd like to explore some means of democratic engagement. For example electing moderators. Maybe vote on rules instead of transferring power just by choosing instances wisely. And I'd like to do away with the current way of upvoting. It sometimes encourages herd mentality instead of good answers. I'd also like to incorporate blogging longer and well reasoned texts, microblogging and sharing pictures. Both silly memes but also vacation pictures with my friends. I think the concept of friend circles is good, You could choose who gets to see what aspect from your life. And I want different pseudonyms so not everyone knows all the stuff I'm into. And something that's entirely missing is selling used stuff in the neighborhood. Something like NextDoor/Craigslist/Facebook marketplace... You could also combine that with local news and connecting the neighborhood, not just discuss world politics all the time.
I think there is much potential for an enticing platform if we think big and use the concept of federation to our advantage, apply it to use-cases and concepts that haven't yet been explored by the big commercial platforms. We have to do away with the urge of re-creating something to make it possible. And it'd be hard to come up with good concepts to foster good behaviour and solve the technical aspects. But at the same time it'd allow us break free from the constraints of what's already there and just be a smaller alternative to XY. The way it currently often is: We let the major players come up with the new ideas. They have different motivations, mainly growing and making money. We re-create what they came up with and add a bit to it, but the concept stays the same. I think we can do more. But it is difficult. There have been crazy ideas, really new distributed platforms being implemented, lots of it with some crypto tech and in the end it didn't take off or wasn't aligned with what the users want and need or are comfortable with. Or people tried combining every feature into one platform (like I just proposed,) and it fails due to complexity.
commune is a semi unique fedderated social media
Looks very neat! Thanks for the link, Something to keep an eye on !
Something like StackOverflow/StackExchange would be nice. Would also like to see a federated platform for designers/artists (some Dribbble or Adobe Behance alternative).
YES PLEASE
I don't feel like Twitch / livestreaming is well-supported yet (OwnCast is sort of a different approach to it)
edit: TikTok also is a livestreaming platform
Some kind of marketplace like eBay.
Having bought and sold there the rules are quite arbitrary, and their cryptic algorhitm is a nuisance to buyers (you clicked by accident on a stove? You're gonna see a ton of stoves in the recommended for a while!) and periodically harms sellers (if you don't post daily and basically make it your day job, good luck making money!)
a federated alternative, with different instances for various interests and categories, meta-categories even and so on. Maybe regional instances like we have on here, one for the EU (quite convenient to ship and receive packages from inside of it, no customs wasting time and money) one for North America, one for East Asia, etc. With one being able to purchase from all of them.
Federation would also ensure that rules are properly enforced without abuses or other malpractices like eBay does (did you know eBay shipped a pig head to somebody who publicly criticized them?) since those instances would naturally be avoided and new ones would be made. It would also prevent excessive fees, as the fediverse is generally not a for-profit endeavor, and still, there will always be the option to shop around from other instances.
Disqus. Would be great to add federated comments to any news, blog or static site.
βTiny knowledge projectsβ: https://observablehq.com/@jsomers/we-need-more-tiny-knowledge-projects-heres-one
Something like a decentralised dynamic web page like the one linked would be cool. But generally, stuff thatβs more like βweb gardensβ where people can build βplacesβ rather than feeds. Wikis being the best known successful example but still somewhat simple (in a good way).
A lot of the ideas presented on this thread are less applications for federation and more applications for blockchain of some kind. For example, wikipedia or uber eats replacement. Before you blindly downvote me for this suggestion, let me explain why.
In federation, you have servers which talk to each other. Users own their own accounts and there are multiple repositories of information. Lemmy is a repository of links and comments, each lemmy instance has its own repository. Mastodon is a repository of tweets, replies, and DMs. This works great. Everybody makes their own repository of information, and users can subscribe to any repository they like. They can also, via federation, access other repositories and "pull" or "push" data to them. That last sentence is the magic of federation you don't get on platforms like Facebook. ActivityPub and federated platforms solve this problem of provider lock-in, at least partially.
This fediverse is not great when you need to establish a single repository of information that everybody in the network uses and is in sync for all users. Because it has no mechanism to arrive at consensus as to what should go into that authoritative repository. Even if all participants can be relied to act honorably (something the internet rarely provides), there will be disagreements about what should go into that repository. Edits may come in at different times, how do we resolve which edit goes "first"? Because it may make the second edit irrelevant, etc. Federation can't solve this problem. ActivityPub can't solve it and Nostr can't solve it. But..
This is the exact problem blockchains solve: how can you establish a centralized repository of information (ledger) and administer it in a decentralized, P2P way where you can't trust all participants to honestly participate? You cannot develop P2P systems which maintain a centralized repository of information without blockchain because no other P2P system has been able to solve this problem. There is no other mechanism of arriving at consensus and prevent sybil attacks.
Wikipedia? Centralized repository of information. Uber eats? Centralized repository of foods available, drivers, customers, and orders. eBay? same. And by the very nature of blockchains, they can also have an economic layer built into them which provides a means of exchange among participants. Useful for an eBay replacement, maybe less useful for a wikipedia replacement. Those means of exchange ("tokens") can be used not just for transfer of funds, but also for things like building/scoring user reputation and incentivizing specific behaviors, especially if you want to incentivize behavior that is contrary to a user's normal economic interest, such as providing a subsidy for restaurants on Uber who use more expensive, but more sustainable food packaging.
The non-P2P solution is to trust the administration of this centralized repository to a trusted authority. We trust wikipedia to administer articles and decide what ultimately goes in them. That system works fine for wikipedia, I'm not convinced we need a decentralized version.
There are many blockchains with various technical attributes which may work better or worse for solving these problems. They may use proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, etc. Some are more decentralized than others and have features like censorship resistance, privacy, smart contract, etc. But they solve this exact problem.
Couchsurfing.org
Uber, Uber Eats (similar to Wolt)
Meetup. And I'd like to see nostr make a reddit clone. I love lemmy, I don't love my identity being tied to an instance. A platform based on nostr's protocol would solve that.
Instead of yet another globally massive social media, I want to see regional social media that's not massive globally, but popular in their country of origin. Or niche social media.
List so far:
Art general:
Design:
Hobby specific:
Ranker.
PHP styled forums and Boorus would be cool. I know some PHP forums have recently added activitypub support, but it's still pretty recent and doesn't have much of a userbase.
Also a video platform like YouTube in a way. There's still a lot of issues to solve with that though, like storage and monetization. PeerTube just isn't going to cut it. Realistically if this were to ever happen, it'd have to be YouTube themselves to add activitypub support themselves and let people connect to them.
VRChat