Re:16944

@cloudskater wrote:

Some instances are run by bad people. Hell, a few projects like Lemmy and Matrix are DEVELOPED by assholes, but the FLOSS and federated nature of these platforms allows us to bypass/fork them and create healthy spaces outside their reach.

Nope, that is actually what is killing the fediverse. I just explained here:

The issue is the divergence in semantic interpretation that emerges at the interpretation layer. ActivityPub standardizes message delivery and defines common activity types. However, it leaves extension semantics and application-layer policy decisions to individual implementations. Servers may introduce custom JSON-LD namespaces and enforce local behaviors, such as reply restrictions, while remaining protocol-compliant. But, the noise created by divergences are problematic, because it creates unexpected, unintended, and unpredictable behavior.

Divergence appears when implementations rely on non-normative metadata and assume reciprocal handling to preserve a consistent user experience. Behavioral alignment then varies. Syntactic exchange succeeds, but behavioral consistency is not guaranteed. Though instances continue to federate at the transport level, policy semantics and processing logic differ across deployments. Those differences produce inconsistent experiences and results between implementations.

That leads to fragmentation, specifically semantic or behavioral fragmentation and an inconsistent user experiences. ActivityPub ensures syntactic interoperability, but semantic interoperability (everyone interprets and enforces rules the same way) varies. This creates a system that is federated at the transport level yet fragmented in behavior and expectations across implementations. It is funny how the thing that the fediverse touted has made the entire thing very brittle. ActivityPub technically federates correctly, but semantically falls apart once servers start adding their own behavioral rules.

https://neon-blue-demon-wyrm.x10.network/archives/16932

FYI, I’m not doing culture wars or political debates. I’m just saying this idea of “forking away” from them is literally breaking the fediverse’s distributed network and creating all kinds of issues with semantic interoperability. Yes, federation is still happening at the delivery level, but the semantic issues are out of fucking control. You are a federation by the very sheer skin of your teeth.

The reason why developers are leaving the fediverse is because you folks don’t take criticism. You respond to criticism with — I’m being so serious right now — political manifestos and harassing developers. ActivityPub developers and authors oversold you folks on the capabilities of ActivityStreams. They flat-out lied to y’all.

cloudskater

@cloudskater@bark.lgbt

The bile people on #Bluesky throw at #decentralized, #opensource projects just because they work differently is so disheartening. There are valid gripes to be had with #Mastodon for instance (pun intended), but please give yourself time to learn how the #Fediverse works before writing everything off.
Some instances are run by bad people. Hell, a few projects like #Lemmy and #Matrix are DEVELOPED by assholes, but the #FLOSS and #federated nature of these platforms allows us to bypass/fork them and create healthy spaces outside their reach.
Yes, it can be intimidating at first. You might even join a crappy instance by mistake, but these projects are growing and improving every day and I, for one, am always willing to help or give advice. The same should be true for anyone who understands that decentralized and FLOSS platforms are how we fight corporate greed and enshittification.
If you are passionate about FLOSS software and actual SOCIAL networks by and for PEOPLE, you have to be willing to teach others how they work, and why they're the way forward. You can admit their current flaws, but it remains true that the more people join these projects, the better they become.

February 16, 2026, 3:16 pm 0 boosts 7 favorites