For the newcomers to the fediverse (mastodon and such) let me tell you a dark secret about this network. They tell you that you can choose any instance (server) and join the network. It is true, but what they do not tell you is that these instances cut ties with other instances quite often, so if you join instance X, is not like you can connect to everyone in this network. It fully depends on what the boss of this instance (the admin) wants to let you connect with.
And you never know much about these.
Therefore if your friend joined the instance Z and you are on the instance X, you may not be able to connect with your friend and you'll have no idea why. In that regards it is less transparent and more awful than Twitter.
Please tell instance admins to stop cutting ties with other instances. Tell them to keep their house clean without telling you who you can call from their house.
Twitter is like a massive apartment building controlled by 1 boss. And this boss is motivated by money. And the building is full of crappy shit, like marketers, ads, they knock on your door with offers. You don't feel at home. You feel controlled. You know you have no power.
The fediverse is like a network of hippies that let you in their own houses and tell you that you can connect to any other house out there, talk to any friend you want. And if you do not like this house, you can pack your stuff and move. But it is deceiving. You may try to call your friend from the other house, only to realize you cannot. You think it may be a phone-line issue, but in fact the hippie home boss intentionally cut the connection to that house, without you even knowing it. It is a shady practice and entirely non-transparent. And if you want to move, you realize you can't move your favorite furniture, the bed, the clothes, and your belongings. You can just move your address somewhere else. And your belongings will stay at the other house. Thus, moving, is hard.
Welcome to the Internet.
The best network is a decentralized one, where your account is local and there are no servers. But the fediverse is still great for now. However be aware of such things....
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@jos@freeradical.zone, Christina ✅ 🇨🇦 (alt account), simon, Mark, Overloaded, Roma, Rokosun and Bodhi like this.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • • •like this
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Cory DeVore 🏜️
in reply to Tio • • •Tio likes this.
Alien (A23P)
in reply to Tio • •"Such completely decentralized networks will also be much more resilient and reliable"
To be fair, being decentralized does not inherently mean something is more resilient or reliable. In fact there exist many cases where being decentralized can render something/one less resilient, less reliable, or even both. The fediverse it self has shown many examples of this over (it's young) the years.
Tio
in reply to Alien (A23P) • •Mark
in reply to Tio • • •Tio
in reply to Mark • •Rokosun
in reply to Mark • • •> Briar is currently very unreliable since both sender and recipient need to be online simultaneously
In order to solve this problem you need propagation nodes in the network, that way you can send your message and then go offline, these propagation nodes will store your message and send it to the recipient when they come online. A new project that does this is github.com/markqvist/sideband
@tio @alien23
GitHub - markqvist/Sideband: LXMF client for Android, Linux and macOS allowing you to communicate with people or LXMF-compatible systems over Reticulum networks using LoRa, Packet Radio, WiFi, I2P, or anything else Reticulum supports.
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