@ch0ccyra1n :ins: @Chris Trottier @Fediverse News #NomadicIdentity is a concept created for #Hubzilla (another project in the #Fediverse that has #ActivityPub as an option, launched in 2012) and has therefore seen over a decade of everyday use. Starting with #RedMatrix, all projects launched by Mike Macgirvin after #Friendica under the #Zotlabs "brand" got this feature. The two projects still alive that have them are Hubzilla and the #Streams code repository.

In other words, this is nothing new. The #Zot protocol with its nomadic identity is older than ActivityPub and much older than #BlueSky.

It basically removes the fixed connection of your identity to the instance that you're on by allowing you to have your channel(s) on multiple instances at the same time, fully in-sync. I'm using this feature myself.

On Mastodon, your account is firmly tied to the instance that it's on. When you move to another instance, you can take your name and those whom you follow with you, but you'll create a new identity.

With nomadic identity, you could e.g. "move" to mstdn.social with your entire account with everything on it, but you could choose to keep your new account connected to your current one on emeraldsocial.org and either keep the one on emeraldsocial.org as your main account.

If you toot something, this toot will appear on your emeraldsocial.org account and your mstdn.social account. If you receive a post, it'll appear on both accounts, too. If you follow someone, you follow them from both accounts, but they'll only see the connection from whichever is your main account. If someone follows you, they'll always follow your main account, no matter which one they've decided to follow. If you switch your main account to mstdn.social, all your connections will be automatically updated.

Now, this is not limited to two instances. Theoretically, you can have your Hubzilla or Streams channel on as many instances as you want to.

(If you're wondering why I'm talking about "channels" rather than "accounts" in connection with nomadic entity: The projects that offer nomadic identity have this special feature that's basically "accounts within an account." You can have one account on an instance, but multiple channels, i.e. multiple separate identities, on the same account. And you can make each channel nomadic in different separate ways from one another.)