Since we are in the fediverse, I think it would be convenient to have a fediverse-wide resolvable fediverse URI scheme, that would look like so:
fediverse://
edit: Found a relevant FEP: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/07d7/fep-07d7.md
Absolutely not. It should run on HTTP, as a website. Unless you want to build a client which would be somehow fundamentally different from a web browser somehow (note: Lagrange and Gopher Browser are just browsers), which would somehow be able to display data from every use of ActivityPub / “the fediverse” in a different context from a web browser, then no. What we need to build is website software more in line with kbin / mbin, collecting together all the different information of the fediverse into one interface.
It could continue running on HTTP(S). Did you know browsers and OSs can handle different URL schemas than the ones they natively open (
http,https,file,data)? Ever saw amailto,magnet,ms-wordetc. URL schema? They can be opened with an in-browser or native app of your choice, and this has worked for years. Yes, clients would need to be patched for support but that’s easy. I would only add “instance’s native UI” as a fallback for people coming from outside the fediverse.Mail clients, torrent clients, and word processors are fundamentally different from browsers. Yes, we can implement their base functions inside a web browser, but that’s not their function, or their core UX principle. Also, you forgot NNTP. Thee is no value in moving away from HTTP(S).