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.
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 …
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.
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
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 :(
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.
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.
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.
You might like a website called Kialo. It’s a tool for structured public debates
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.
Gitlab is actively working on this.
That’s really great to hear! It’s an incredible vision for an open source future not dependent on MegaCorps, and I am SO here for that!
Youre in luck. Forgeo is a well maintained, self hosted gitea fork that is federated by design.
Fantastic, I will check this out!
Now we just need to get projects to start using it and federating their source code :)
I suspect the other comment about Gitlab may have more adoption because lots of projects including some very large ones are already using that platform.
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.
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
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.
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.
“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).
A dating website! Okcupid, POF, hinge, bumble, etc. All no longer even try to match people. Just pay for nothing.
that’s a great idea!
Tiktok Youtube (there is peertube but it’s not as popular as YouTube)
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.
That’s why I said YouTube, not the other stuff.
Then again, nothing is preventing you from uploading shirt videos to PeerTube as well.
Good thing shorts and stories are dumb
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.
Boorus ought to be halfway there. They’re content-centric and high-bandwidth, they tend to have a theme, and they live or die by worthwhile tagging. But they’re not a feed, the way most federated platforms have been. They are not social media in any sense. They’re image hosts, minus any the incentive to create attention-sucking antipatterns.
Maybe with a more unified user experience - and ideally some P2P elements to make hosting cheaper and sturdier - we could fucking finally have a place that just hosts drawings. We’re a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century and it is absurd that every gallery site has some arbitrary limits on what content is too weird.
Tumblr used to be the exception, until Apple destroyed them. Bastards.
Bandcamp
I love bandcamp as it is, but this is an amazing idea.
Wattpad, tho it’s not a social media
