this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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I'm a fan of the Fediverse, but what are the major issues we faced right now because of the limitations of the #ActivityPub protocol? Recently, decentralize social networks are at their peak, big players are trying to be part of it, and is constantly in the news.

I have been on the Fediverse for quite a few years, and since alternatives were popping up I tried to learn how they work (it's not like I'm an expert, but I have a general idea), with #BlueSky opening up federation and alternatives like #nostr for what I've read, they are strong in what ActivityPub still lacks.

One thing that comes to my mind right now is how your identity is tied to the instance you are, thus making portability harder. In nostr for example, your identity is not tied to any relay, and Bluesky has domain names as username, which is pretty cool, and for what I read from Bluesky blog, it seems like portability works great since all your posts will still be in your profile. In ActivityPub (or at least in mastodon) moving an account actually means only your followers, and your handle has the instance on it, tying your account to the instance. How could this be handled? I mean, if you are self-hosting your own instance, there is no problem, but the mast majority of people do not host their own instance.

Another thing may be, quote posts. I read from one of the mastodon team they are trying to make it to the protocol instead of the "weird" implementation each software does with the URL at the end, which is a good thing since I feel like every software kind of have their own way of doing things instead of trying to make it to the protocol.

Anyway, want to listen what are your proposal to these problems and what other things you think we could learn from these other protocols. If you spot any mistake, feel free to correct me.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

@N3M Then, the link option does not sound that bad. My problem is that is not actually something part of the protocol, instead is the client job to render the link as a post. As you say, I don't know how this will break stuff, a decentralized network is harder than a centralized.