Pretty much in the title. Maybe you wouldn’t even use it, but would like to simply see it exist for the sake of having a federated alternative.

For me, it’d be the following:

  • LinkedIn
  • Meetup
  • Tiktok

I am on the first two, but would prefer a federated alternative. I’m not on Tiktok, but would like to see a federated alternative.

I’ll admit these might not be a good idea. But as a thought experiment, I’d be curious about the community weigh in on what you all think this might look like.

  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    0·
    9 months ago

    Uhh, let’s see…

    After a search, it seems like they actually just copy the settings from your Mastodon account. It’s still a separate account. I’ll keep checking in case I missed something.

    It doesn’t even sound like they securely bring over the password, which presents a little bit of a phishing threat if people are re-entering their Mastodon password into third party apps like this one.

    Edit: Yup, here’s a video/gif. I’d do a federated link but I’m not sure Lemmy supports that yet.

    You could totally copy someone else’s Mastodon this way, so that’s fun.

    • danhakimi@kbin.social
      0·
      9 months ago

      alright, well that’s not great, but my point is more that we could update the protocol to allow this to be done securely and conveniently.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        0·
        9 months ago

        It would still be a separate account, but yes, you seamless migration to a new instance could be a thing. There’s scripts for it already. OPs suggestion that you can just move between instances with the same account isn’t how the fediverse works.

        If you just want to been on Pixelfed and Mastodon, your instance giving access to both would be the cleanest, best way.

        • danhakimi@kbin.social
          0·
          9 months ago

          OPs suggestion that you can just move between instances with the same account isn’t how the fediverse works.

          I’m OP.

          I’m not sure why you’re speaking in the present tense about a suggestion I am making for the future.

          • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
            0·
            9 months ago

            Ah, sorry. Didn’t notice, there’s a few people talking to me.

            Yes, it’s not a thing that could work. If you had some centralised way to handle accounts it wouldn’t be federated anymore. It would be another (semi-)walled garden or some kind of blockchain-ish thing, but either way it wouldn’t be ActivityPub-complient.

            • danhakimi@kbin.social
              0·
              9 months ago

              If you had some centralised way to handle accounts it wouldn’t be federated anymore.

              So why can’t you have some federated way to handle accounts?

              but either way it wouldn’t be ActivityPub-complient.

              Unless you changed activitypub, right?

              • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
                0·
                9 months ago

                What does that mean? When you post, who’s server’s outbox do you post from? Inboxes and outboxes by server are a central part of the standard.

                You can copy over a user, and make another similar account (like pixelfed), or you can do stuff on that server from another federated server, but at the end of the day you’re not on the same account on different servers.

                Unless you changed activitypub, right?

                Sure. It’d be a pretty huge departure, though. To a weird degree, like Coca-Cola leaving the beverage business becoming a tire company.

                If you wanted to make a new protocol, you could go beyond federation and have a fully decentralised system where everything happens on arbitrarily many servers in parallel, but that would be a lot of work and probably data-heavy before any users walk through the door.

                • danhakimi@kbin.social
                  0·
                  9 months ago

                  What does that mean? When you post, who’s server’s outbox do you post from? Inboxes and outboxes by server are a central part of the standard.

                  The server my account is stored on.

                  or any other, I don’t give a shit, I’m not sure why this would make a difference, but that seems like the obvious answer to me.

                  You can copy over a user, and make another similar account (like pixelfed), or you can do stuff on that server from another federated server, but at the end of the day you’re not on the same account on different servers.

                  I don’t know why the current pixelfed app needs to make a separate account.

                  I gather it finds that solution most convenient, as it means the fewest interactions with the Mastodon server, and there’s currently no straightforward for the current pixelfed app to establish a secure long-term session with a non-pixelfed server. I understand that it currently does make a separate account.

                  I don’t understand why it is inconceivable for the activitypub protocol to support such communication. eMail has multiple standards that let me log into Thunderbird from non-Thunderbird email servers.

                  Sure. It’d be a pretty huge departure, though. To a weird degree, like Coca-Cola leaving the beverage business becoming a tire company.

                  If you wanted to make a new protocol, you could go beyond federation and have a fully decentralised system where everything happens on arbitrarily many servers in parallel, but that would be a lot of work and probably data-heavy before any users walk through the door.

                  I feel like you’re describing something I’m not calling for. I’m not calling for accounts to be mirrored to multiple servers. I’m calling for a system where client applications can access different servers without copying accounts to a more familiar server.

                  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
                    0·
                    9 months ago

                    And I feel like I’ve explained in as much depth as I can quickly what the problem is. I’ll pass the ball over into your court now. Propose an architecture that can do this, prove me wrong.

                    Like, if you have specific questions I’m here, but it would be a waste of both our time to go “no, you can’t; yes you can” back and forth.