Notices by Javier Alvarez (jmangt@hachyderm.io)

@lxo Here is an example of what I am talking about.

https://twitter.com/owillis/status/1593608286460420101

@lxo I think you are looking at this from the point of view of whether a federated model can succeed.

The question you should be asking yourself is: What made those federated networks succeed?

@lxo oh, my stand is not that the federation can't succeed but that the access to the "naked" network won't reach critical mass. Not without a "boutique" or "central" way to connect to the network.

@lxo Because the idea of a bank or phone company (for the masses) is no longer scary. It is an understood entity. There is nothing to figure out, and there are "no consequences" to pay if you choose one or the other. You have to remember that even the word "server" is scary. If, for example, there was a "friendly" layer on top of the network that called them "communities," that would reduce the friction of adoption.

@lxo that is precisely my point :) The banks have already solved the federation problem for you. You then have to pick the one you like the best. #mastodon still has no "banks". We are still interacting with very "raw" services.

Another way to see it is on how the web got started. The protocols existed and the nodes could talk to each other. But it wasn't until AOL "packaged" it that we started seeing massive adoption of the network.

@lxo :) so heard me out. Banks are fronts that simplify the federated network that manage money. They exists so you don't have to think about the network. And they are motivated to exist because they make a profit for providing you that service. For our use case there are no "centralized" or "simplified" gateways to the network ( or they are not well known yet).

@chillicampari @evan Yes that is what I meant. As long as there is not a "single" place to gather, the masses won't join because "there is not a single place to gather". You can see this already with the most common barrier to join #mastodon , picking the server. That decision point introduces a huge friction point for the masses.

@evan We will "never" reach the masses with a federated model. BUT... the amount of noise produced by Climate Change Deniers and their bots will be drastically reduced as each instance can deal with them and nullify the spread of their misconceptions.