I’m probably gonna show my age by saying this, but in my opinion we already had the near-perfect federated discussion platform over 40 years ago, and that was Usenet.
On a philosophical level it’s not too different from what the Fediverse is trying to achieve. However, because it is a protocol and not a software, you aren’t bound to specific implementations. Everyone can implement the NNTP protocol because it operates on the same principle idea as email. And just as not one organization “owns” email or HTTP, no organization can own Usenet.
It’s also more of a “verse” than the Fediverse because it’s really fundamentally a different thing than the internet (as in the HTTP internet), and not a software layer on top of it. By that virtue, you don’t even have to bother with shit like tracking, advertising, or even large-scale data scraping because the protocol just doesn’t allow for it. (Doesn’t mean it couldn’t, of course. I’m sure a Google would come up with NNTP2 and enshittify it if it gained enough traction, but hey.)
In terms of moderation, on Usenet a mod is really someone who pre-reads messages and either approves them or not. You can implement the same tech that powers email junk filtering for that, and it works generally pretty well. It’s way more hands-off than anything Reddit or Lemmy or forums offer. Sure, for large enough groups this becomes a chore too, but I’d still rather work through a bunch of what basically amounts to emails than some convoluted mod interface on a website.
The only downside is that it’s not as easy to use, at least not for people who’re used to modern apps. On the other hand, everyone who’s ever written an email im Outlook or Thunderbird shouldn’t have a problem, and I’m sure someone could cook up a pretty smartphone app, too.
Fair points, I guess. When I speak of advertising, I meant specifically that "ad-tech-driven surveillance economy", not the ability to post (or spam) your product down any given channel. I should have said targeted advertising specifically.
I guess I am in that bubble, yes. I remember Usenet mostly as being rather heavily moderated as I mostly stayed away from the scary parts of the alt. hierarchy (esp. alt.binaries), and most of my interactions were with creative communities in the form of writing and fan-fiction on rec, as well as what I perceived as early safe spaces for discussions of LGBTQ issues on soc (especially SSYGLB). There were also some groups in my native language that catered to both of these interests in some of the language hierarchies outside of the Big 8.
But I suppose it's the same romanticized idea that Gemini follows and only appeals to me because I have somewhat positive memories. Idk, I guess I'm just kinda fed up with the modern internet, especially because I also see a lot of that ad-tech crap at work which doesn't leave me with a lot of hope that it won't get worse.