So I am 33 years old now, and I been on the internet since I was like 10. I have seen big and small services spin up and die over the past few years of my life, and yeah, that is what time does. However, I think some of it is sadly driven by corporate greed, and some by actually wanting to move to something more modern. However, the thing that upsets me the most is the fracturing we have more and more over the past few years, more than I seen in my most recent.
What I mean by fracturing is, if we go way back to my teenage years. We had so many messaging apps, and well, most of us didn’t care what our friends were on because they were all pretty much the same. We had several apps that let us sign in with one app and chat with our friends on Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo, and MSN Messenger. However, as we move into more modern times, we now have a harder time doing this because each app starts doing very specific things, creating differences that make it hard to build a client that can use them all. This has fractured communication to the point where people end up using multiple chat apps and are pushed to pick and choose where they want to chat. This ends up causing some people to stop talking because it is just too much fatigue to have like 5-6 different chat apps on your computer/phone.
The reason I am taking a moment to write about this is that several internet citizens, as I think is the appropriate term, have grown up and live online. We have a solution, and while yes, xkcd 927 points out… we love to introduce new competing standards. We can still interoperate between standards. Look at the two, both with their own infighting… but both are open. We have ATProto (used for Bluesky) and ActivityPub (the most common app, Mastodon), where a developer put in the time to create Bridgy Fed, which provides a way for us to live on different platforms while still interacting with each other. This allows both sides to stay on the platform they are comfortable with, while still communicating and viewing each other’s work. Granted, it does have an “opt-in” hurdle, just wish it was easier to get that info to people so they knew better…
So, where am I getting with all this rambling about Fracturing and Decentralization? I think we are hitting the new point again, as the Discord situation is causing decision fatigue… It happens ever so many months these days with Twitter (never calling it X, sorry), Telegram, Furaffinity, etc… things happen on these platforms, creates a fatigue to be like “we gotta figure out another place” and then tons of people flock to different things, and then most people either snap back because their friends and people they follow are too stubburn or most likely just have switch fatigue… We all have too much going on in our lives to have to switch and find something new, and it sucks. I get it, I really do. This is why I write this… to say we know there is a better way, we can decentralize. It is just hard because most of the time, decentralized options are less “user-friendly” as they are built for the nerdy internet citizens rather than the common user.
If you are reading my blog, you are most likely one of the more nerdy internet folks. Why? Because let us face it, I am a ranting fox on the internet rambling about what I think the internet should be like. With that said, it’s kinda on us to push and help rather than keep creating discourse about which open platform is better. With that said, I am guilty of this myself… and I am not saying we shouldn’t and can’t make our arguments about the different options of things that exist. Heck, I think it is good as it forces competition and people to make things better. I am tired of apps and platforms getting acquired and consolidated, because it just creates echo chambers that force us all to see and interact less with those we disagree with. This is because corporate-owned systems want to funnel us into falling down our echo chambers to stay hooked and not disconnect, to become comfortable and surrounded by people who only agree with us. This has caused so much pain, and, I personally believe, so much of the problem in the real world is the result of this… It is so hard for people to agree to disagree or to work toward a middle ground anymore.
Well, this blog has gotten way too rambly for me at this point… I just wanted to get out that we have better solutions. They are decentralized and open source; they may not yet have full interoperability features, but we are working towards that. We also have concerns about the different platforms and those who run them. With that said, I will continue to use ActivityPub for my social media as I like how its federation is designed, even if I have some issues with it. I will mostly be moving to Fluxer for my chatting, not because it is the new hotness… but because of the creator, their roadmap, and the written reasons for building it. I am not opposed to matrix; I am just someone who has run a semi-large matrix server at one point. Moderation is a hassle, and concerns about the data you might end up accidentally hosting being illegal, depending on who signs up and joins what servers… as your server syncs the chats of any server your users join. Then, with the concerns around its cryptography and the fact that the encrypted room’s names are not encrypted, you see some names that may disturb you.
So, in closing, try to focus on services that align with your morals as best you can. Then, if you do know how to program, try to help create decentralized or bridging services like the Bridgy Fed for the platforms you care about. This will allow us to try to return to the early web, where we could all be on platforms we liked, without the fatigue of having 5-6 different apps just to keep up with all our different friends on different platforms.
