I still see benefits to strong instance identity, it can lead to some interesting dynamics down the line.
But it needs to come with a smooth onboarding process, paired with the ability to easily migrate your account to a new instance with no loss of account history. That second thing also helps with the first one, if you can easily transfer, the choice of instance is much less critical as a user.
I still see benefits to strong instance identity, it can lead to some interesting dynamics down the line.
Such as?
But it needs to come with a smooth onboarding process, paired with the ability to easily migrate your account to a new instance with no loss of account history.
Totally agree. Like I said, I think the instance should be selected automatically (or at least promoted) by available capacity. It could just sort the list by user count to start and maybe start collecting some performance telemetry on instances to fine tune it later.
The account history is a big one, too. It could even be as simple as having the ability to download/upload your account history in a zip file, then it also serves as a backup. You could even schedule it regularly with the right bot or browser extension.
Another thing I just thought of while I was replying to this is that would be really nice to have is cross-instance authentication. It’s kind of annoying when I go to a message context, but then I have to go back and find the message in my inbox to reply.
Another thing I just thought of while I was replying to this is that would be really nice to have is cross-instance authentication. It’s kind of annoying when I go to a message context, but then I have to go back and find the message in my inbox to reply.
Very much agree with this. It’d be great if usernames were unique across instances, too, but without some centralized (which I realize is a dirty word in the Fediverse) server handling signups and distributing that information to instances, I don’t see how that would be possible. Obviously we don’t want passwords distributed (even encrypted) to any random instance; it’d be trivial for a bad actor to create a rogue instance just for the purpose of gathering them.
The fact that there’s nothing stopping someone else from registering, say, RagingNerdoholic@Beehaw.org, and claiming to be you even in the same threads you’re posting in, feels a little sketchy.
So many things could happen, it will be an organic process of evolution. Let’s say communities end up consolidating (e.g. one of the gaming communities becomes the prevalent one), then the server that has the super successful community, how will that affect it? Will people want to be on that server because of that community? Will people prefer to use a server that stays topic-agnostic but maybe offers a strong identity (vibe, political leaning, geographic, etc etc) and that’s what attracts users?
Maybe those servers don’t even have any of the usual suspect of communities, because it’s expected the users will go subscribe to the popular one. Maybe it only offers local info threads, or open format / ideology guided discussions.
Or on the other hand will we see more and more specialized servers that are focused around a set of communities from a specific field?
I guess I’m just wondering how it will all fall into place after there is massive growth, it’ll definitely be an interesting part of human behavior to observe.
cross-instance authentication
Yeah that is a big one indeed, I was very confused at first why clicking on some links wouldn’t work how I expected it to until I realized there were some hard links that would take you to that server’s page directly, and since you’re not a user there ofc you’re not logged in. That could be better.
I still see benefits to strong instance identity, it can lead to some interesting dynamics down the line.
But it needs to come with a smooth onboarding process, paired with the ability to easily migrate your account to a new instance with no loss of account history. That second thing also helps with the first one, if you can easily transfer, the choice of instance is much less critical as a user.
Such as?
Totally agree. Like I said, I think the instance should be selected automatically (or at least promoted) by available capacity. It could just sort the list by user count to start and maybe start collecting some performance telemetry on instances to fine tune it later.
The account history is a big one, too. It could even be as simple as having the ability to download/upload your account history in a zip file, then it also serves as a backup. You could even schedule it regularly with the right bot or browser extension.
Another thing I just thought of while I was replying to this is that would be really nice to have is cross-instance authentication. It’s kind of annoying when I go to a message context, but then I have to go back and find the message in my inbox to reply.
Very much agree with this. It’d be great if usernames were unique across instances, too, but without some centralized (which I realize is a dirty word in the Fediverse) server handling signups and distributing that information to instances, I don’t see how that would be possible. Obviously we don’t want passwords distributed (even encrypted) to any random instance; it’d be trivial for a bad actor to create a rogue instance just for the purpose of gathering them.
The fact that there’s nothing stopping someone else from registering, say, RagingNerdoholic@Beehaw.org, and claiming to be you even in the same threads you’re posting in, feels a little sketchy.
So many things could happen, it will be an organic process of evolution. Let’s say communities end up consolidating (e.g. one of the gaming communities becomes the prevalent one), then the server that has the super successful community, how will that affect it? Will people want to be on that server because of that community? Will people prefer to use a server that stays topic-agnostic but maybe offers a strong identity (vibe, political leaning, geographic, etc etc) and that’s what attracts users?
Maybe those servers don’t even have any of the usual suspect of communities, because it’s expected the users will go subscribe to the popular one. Maybe it only offers local info threads, or open format / ideology guided discussions.
Or on the other hand will we see more and more specialized servers that are focused around a set of communities from a specific field?
I guess I’m just wondering how it will all fall into place after there is massive growth, it’ll definitely be an interesting part of human behavior to observe.
Yeah that is a big one indeed, I was very confused at first why clicking on some links wouldn’t work how I expected it to until I realized there were some hard links that would take you to that server’s page directly, and since you’re not a user there ofc you’re not logged in. That could be better.