Via this Lemmy post I just bumped into this: An Open Letter Calling for the Resignation of Eugen Rochko (Gargron) from Mastodon Development.
Posting here because the broader discussion on the topic is very relevant and this is a brainstorming area where we can think them over. I hope we can - in a very constructive way - find ways to improve on some of the pain points that are brought up, and possible others that are as yet unnamed.
Also: Note that I do not endorse the open letter.
You are right, this is part of a broader discussion (and also a bit similar to the problems of centralization in the Matrix ecosystem).
I think the people that have been raising these and similar concerns over the years are mostly non-technical users of the larger instances that feel insulted if the response is “fork or host your own” as usually done (I am guilty of that as well).
I think they feel insulted because it reminds them of their (to a large extend imagined) tech-illiteracy and lack of capability to take matters into their own hands. It is a kind of self-inflicted wound and has a large overlap with other forms of self-identified victim-hood.
I am not exactly sure how to address this, as in reality it is not technically difficult or very expensive to host your own instance of a Fediverse server (or XMPP server for that matter). Sure it could be made a bit more stream-lined here and there, and not all software is equally suited for it, but the real problem seems to be rather the self-image of the people complaining (so they will not even try to do it).
The only “solution” I can think of is trying to foster small communities that can pool resources and help each other to overcome emotional, technical & financial hurdles. This might for example mean starting a crowd-funding drive to have one more technically inclined person start a self-hosted instance or maybe even a fork.
But as long as people are feeling isolated and seeing the Fediverse as some sort of outlet to their (often only perceived) victim-hood, the same kind of appeals to authority and later complains about said authority (if they don’t react as hoped for) will come up again and again.
Yes, this is a very good point. I decided to move this to Fediverse Futures community, because of my interest to take feedback and translate/transfer to technical realms.
For regular non-technical would-be fedizens its very likely they encounter Mastodon first and also to choose a large instance. Mastodon is relatively well-productized and the big instances feature prominently. With little understanding how fedi works it is easy to become exposed to its bad aspects. Some fedizens then leave again, while others move on to different instances. But rarely they move on to a different microblogging app Pleroma is tiny in representation, and most people probably haven’t heard of e.g. Hometown. Luckily more and different apps are joining (e.g. GoToSocial), so gradually there’ll be more choice.
Btw, I am not worried about people leaving fedi and don’t share Eugen’s vision of offering an alternative to the traditional social media platforms for the masses. I feel for fedi it is way more important to retain and further improve its culture and lively communities. And that works best on a path of slow growth, while the technology matures. On the other hand I am worried about the fediverse not evolving fast enough, and becoming irrelevant and slowly languishing. Our Spiral Island must be stronger to weather future storms.
Communities are absolutely key and crucial to fediverse. I advocate we take community way beyond mere instances.
A “Tragedy of the Commons” for the Fediverse is imho huge problem that indeed needs to be tackled. There are few people willing to do the community work, advocacy and the boring chores (also a problem on SocialHub). On technical side (and maybe funded too) I’ve been working on Fedi Foundation, but if that picks up steam I don’t know.
On a non-technical side there’s more interest in offering bundled services to fedizens, which is very positive development.