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:
- Meetup
- Tiktok
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.
Something like StackOverflow/StackExchange would be nice. Would also like to see a federated platform for designers/artists (some Dribbble or Adobe Behance alternative).
Federated SO where each participating site has its own list of topics makes a lot of sense tbh
You could probably make this as a custom lemmy frontend. The main functionality is almost identical.
It’d have to be very custom but yeah it would work. Implementing review queues and rep/privileges and stuff might take a bit longer if you want to mirror the site that closely though.
YES PLEASE
I would like discord but in fediverse. This one i am actually using and even there are foss alternative like nextcloud talk i would like something that is at least as reliable as discord for calls
Is that not what Matrix is? I haven’t been to really understand Matrix so maybe I’m wrong.
He meamtwd calling, calling is lacking
Yes, Matrix is the closest I’ve seen to Discord that is federated. However, it doesn’t use ActivityPub I believe
Is ActivityPub a good fit for chat? Trying to make every kind of interaction fit into a single protocol sounds like a recipe for a bad protocol.
ActivityPub is not designed for real time chat and communication, I believe.
There’s Matrix and XMPP protocol, but upcoming MLS protocol (which backed Mozilla, The Matrix.org Foundation, even Meta) looks more complete, feature-wise.
well, yeah, because it’s private messaging, it requires encryption and things like that. Really, fediverse instances should ideally incorporate matrix chat in some way or another, but that’s not exactly trivial.
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.
couldn’t your instance just serve your identity to other instances?
If you are talking about something like openauth (where you sign into some random website using your Google account) yes, but your base identity is still tied to Google. So if Google goes down, you lose your google account, and you also lose your account at every other website you logged in to using your google account.
If you are meaning transfer your account from google to say office365, this is possible but there’s a few problems:
- If your instance shuts down without doing this, you lose everything
- How does your instance choose which instance to transfer it to? What if users don’t like that choice?
- Transferring means sharing your login credentials with the new instance.
- Your “username” that you share and post online for people to follow you has changed. It’s no longer user@instance but user@newinstance. Some kind of a redirect could be setup I suppose.
Some of these problems are solvable with some changes to the AP code. Some of them are not, at least not without a rewrite of the entire AP structure. Nostr sidesteps all these issues by simply not having your username tied to an instance in the first place.
If you are talking about something like openauth (where you sign into some random website using your Google account) yes, but your base identity is still tied to Google. So if Google goes down, you lose your google account, and you also lose your account at every other website you logged in to using your google account.
Yeah, essentially that. The back-up plan in case your instance goes down is a separate issue, my main plan is just that users shouldn’t need a new account for each fediverse application they want to try, considering one account is already able to make any kind of post.
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.
You can log into a pixelfed app on android with a mastodon account. Why can’t you log into a pixelfed web frontend with a mastodon account? What law of physics makes that impossible?
Uhh, let’s see…
After a search, it seems like they actually just copy the settings from your Mastodon account. It’s still a separate account. I’ll keep checking in case I missed something.
It doesn’t even sound like they securely bring over the password, which presents a little bit of a phishing threat if people are re-entering their Mastodon password into third party apps like this one.
Edit: Yup, here’s a video/gif. I’d do a federated link but I’m not sure Lemmy supports that yet.
You could totally copy someone else’s Mastodon this way, so that’s fun.
alright, well that’s not great, but my point is more that we could update the protocol to allow this to be done securely and conveniently.
It would still be a separate account, but yes, seamless migration to a new instance could be a thing. There’s scripts for it already. OPs suggestion that you can just move between instances with the same account isn’t how the fediverse works.
If you just want to been on Pixelfed and Mastodon, your instance giving access to both would be the cleanest, best way.
OPs suggestion that you can just move between instances with the same account isn’t how the fediverse works.
I’m OP.
I’m not sure why you’re speaking in the present tense about a suggestion I am making for the future.
Ah, sorry. Didn’t notice, there’s a few people talking to me.
Yes, it’s not a thing that could work. If you had some centralised way to handle accounts it wouldn’t be federated anymore. It would be another (semi-)walled garden or some kind of blockchain-ish thing, but either way it wouldn’t be ActivityPub-complient.
It’s entirely technically possible. Apps already use third party identity providers all the time, you just need federated apps to support OAuth both for signing in on the client and as a backend identity provider, and standardize how federated apps return user info that would be common to any federated app (usernames, saved / liked posts, subscribed feeds, stuff common to the ActivityPub spec).
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.
How about a federated archive.org? (Kids these days are crazy about scanned public domain books and stuff.)
since there is lemmy im happy
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
I saw something similar to twitch working in the blockchain architecture. It seems like a cool project where bandwidth is shared among users. But the crypto-scheme leaves a kinda strange feeling about it.
I would like to see something that is less focussed on social media and more on building something together like Wikipedia. One thing that comes to mind would be mapping out all political statements along with arguments and evidence to support or falsify them and the relationships between them (e.g. “if you believe x is a big problem in society and you believe y is the perfect form of government then you must believe y solves x”).
A lot of our political discussions seem quite repetitive and go in circles because each argument is presented in a very shallow way. Something to counteract that would be welcome and I think it could work quite well in a federated way since people with different political views would probably want to contribute the supporting and that falsifying sides for each statement.
That would go to shit immediately. The sheer level of moderation that would be required to prevent that from being abused and corrupted would be insane, and then that kind of moderation would in turn invalidate the whole project because the moderation itself would have its own biases.
But it especially wouldn’t work in a federated space. Are you suggesting that people can just open their own instance of that? If there are multiple different instances for this kind of thing, that’s even more abusable.
Part of the reason Wikipedia works is it is centralized, relatively neutral, and you need sources on facts. It’s run by people that adhere to a strict standard, and everyone that contributes is required to adhere to that exact same standard.
What would be the scholarly criteria for the sort of thing that you’re talking about? What is the standard? And how do you enforce that standard in a federated space?
Because if it’s anything like how federation works around Lemmy, there can be no standard. Instances are going to do whatever they like based on the biases of each admin, which undermines the entire concept.
You’re trying to apply objectivity to a very subjective area. I’m not saying it’s impossible, and you should by all means try it, but maybe it would be a good idea to try something that has a better chance, first, such as this:
How about an open platform for scientific review and tracking? Like, whenever a new discovery or advance is announced, that site would cut through the hype, report on peer review, feasibility, flaws in methodology, the ways in which it’s practical and impractical, how close we are to actual usage (state of clinical trials, demonstrated practical applications, etc.)
And it would keep being updated, somewhat like Wikipedia, as more research occurs. It needs a more robust system of review to avoid the problems that Wikipedia has, and I don’t have the solution for that, but I believe there’s got to be a way to do it that’s resistant to manipulation.
Basically a living survey paper. Examine.com does a very good job of this for a very small set of the scientific literature. The problem is that it takes a lot of work to do, few people are qualified to do it, and out of those few, even fewer will have the time to make such contributions.
You might like a website called Kialo. It’s a tool for structured public debates
I like this idea
You might like a website called Kialo. It’s a tool for structured public debates
Thank you, that’s a great platform I did not think existed.
Tiktok Youtube (there is peertube but it’s not as popular as YouTube)
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 …
This is why I expect the video side of things to be more on the level of stream channels that self-host content with subscriptions for access to VoDs, rather than singular big platforms. Streaming in of itself is a lot of traffic too, but you have much bigger RoI per bandwidth spent with live viewers, and you cut down the storage requirements with limited VoD access too.
The only problem then becomes discovering these channels from the rest of the federated space, but honestly, either that will be a problem that will be solved by the space in a more general manner (oooh, imagine the return of web rings! Lol) or… It will end up being an issue that doesn’t matter. Like right now, still coming from video games, MinnMax and Second Wind are two creator-owned platforms that appear to be relatively unpopular, with short amount of thousands of views, except they run off of donations on Patreons and the viewers they do have keep them afloat with a good decent margin.
Yeah the data is an issue for sure. I wonder if torrents of some kind would help making it more doable, where viewers (on computers, not phones) build up a cache from which they also seed. Like Spotify did when they started out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZeroNet
Something similar to this might help disburse the load required for peertube. What sites you read you host in return, very much like with bit torrent with a presentation layer tacked on top.
I think you are looking for something like ipfs.
I think the cache would also have to partially be on phones. If users are to ‘pay’ for using the network by caching/redistributing part of it, since most people access the web from phones
Yeah viewing devices would all have to share hosting duties. I’m sure it could work, and popular/viral videos would serve well as the demand would be spread across the most devices as well.
There would still have to be dedicated seed servers for long tail content though I imagine.
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? :)
Those sound like good ideas in theory, but your phone’s battery would last about 2 hours if you did this.
The heavy lifting, like tagging the content of millions of videos probably needs to be done somewhere other than the end-user’s mobile device. Some sorting and filtering of text-based metadata on the user’s device to pick what videos to see next is viable though.
True, although it would probably not be so bad for the textual content. CPU load for indexing would be relatively low, and the average phone is dumping tons of data over the network to Google, Apple, and whomever else for these same end-result “benefits” already.
But, regardless, ideally, -ou don’t do it on your phone. You pay $10/m for a VPS that does it, and delivers it to your phone via push notification + fetch – same way it’s done now, but without the middle man.
It’s not a solution available to the average Joanne, although it’d be easy enough to achieve. The problem is that there’s no incentive for anyone to make these appliances: most people don’t understand what they’re sacrificing, or don’t care. And while it’s a relatively small amount of work, it’s a large effort for a few OSS devs to take on, and it’d require at least some support infrastructure, apps, and so on to be truly turn-key for The Public. And so, instead, we have TikTok.
There are hosting providers that offer unmetered bandwidth.
Sure, setup complexity is higher, but it is definitely doable.
I have thought about such a project as I also have access to relatively inexpensive 20gbps fiber, but lack the funding currently to do it.
Maybe one day…
Same with Instagram. I’m a performer and rely on it for outreach and promotion but absolutely HATE the platform to no end. And this is a common sentiment among all performers. It is a garbage platform that comforts Nazis and pedophiles but bans the hashtag #horror and puts your account in jail for using it.
Unfortunately, PixelFed has almost no one on it and reaching a local audience is impossible, so there’s no point in switching. We have to go where the people are :(
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
Trakt would be good also and it covers film and TV.
LibRate is WIP fediverse alternative for that.
It plans to supports film, books, games, and more. Basically one stop for every tracker.
A dating website! Okcupid, POF, hinge, bumble, etc. All no longer even try to match people. Just pay for nothing.
This is the answer I was looking for. Dating sites hardly exist at this point; they’ve all been converted to human swipe slot machines.
that’s a great idea!
A video platform would be great. Like TikTok, or stories from Facebook, Insta or YT.
YouTube already has that, it’s called PeerTube.
PeerTube has standard videos, but not the Stories part if I’m lot mistaken.
Good thing shorts and stories are dumb
That’s why I said YouTube, not the other stuff.
Then again, nothing is preventing you from uploading shirt videos to PeerTube as well.
Not social media but I’d probably like the idea of social games like these little timekillers from Facebook, chess, worms, poker, whatever that’s not that dependent on speed\ping and lightweight. Basically an app platform that can be easily included into other apps. Some different Lemmy communities can even challenge each other or hold events.
“Tiny knowledge projects”: 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 that’s more like “web gardens” where people can build “places” rather than feeds. Wikis being the best known successful example but still somewhat simple (in a good way).
Flickr
Because Instagram sucks, and Pixelfed isn’t really that amazing of a social media service despite having some great photography to gawk at.
I’d also like an alternative to Vimeo since not that many design agencies post their cool stuff on YouTube or even PeerTube (and I’m basically addicted to television branding).
I can’t get browsing by hashtags to work on pixelfed itself. Only shows like 3 results.
