Can Reddit Federate? Should It? (lemmyunchained.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey all,

I was just listening to the Lex Fridman podcast where Mark Zuckerberg mentioned Meta’s plans for a federated platform. It got me wondering: Could Reddit follow that path too?

Are there technical or financial obstacles that might prevent this? More importantly, should Reddit even consider this move? Would it be a win or a loss for us, the users, and for internet culture in general? Keen to hear your thoughts on this!

(I’m a recent Reddit refugee, fed up with the situation over there. Found Lemmy searching for info on homelab during the blackout. Found all the main things I need here. And the community is great. Like Reddit used to be. Can’t see myself going back)

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[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Even if they could, why would they?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

So they don’t get left behind?? Dunno. Seems like people are starting to pay attention now to decentralised systems with big players now openly discussing it. If meta is serious about moving that direction, I don’t think it will be long for others to follow suit.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Federating with smaller platforms would run counter to their goal of maximizing profit. That's the reason why they are killing third party apps to begin with.

In any case, most people don't really care if a platform is centralized or decentralized as long as it has the people or content they care about.

Also, I'd be worried about Meta.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

@LachlanUnchained I was on Reddit for 6 years and never heard of decentralized anything. I used this one twitter app and it was like login to mastodon. Like wtf is a mastodon 😭😭

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I mean it's basically like the forums that reddit (mostly) killed back in the day. Just if those forums could all see each other whenever they wanted.