✨ Nora Tindall  🪐

I don't actually think anyone wants big decentralized chat systems like mastadon; what they want is a big centrally run chat system with no friction but that isn't completely co-opted by corporate garbage.

Mastodon isn't a chat system, though. It's a social media platform - and, as a matter of fact, it's pretty great at a lot of things specifically _because_ it's federated! There are problems, but there are also new opportunities.

Specifically, by allowing individual servers to define their identity through branding, moderation, and alternative interfaces, the Fediverse has an inbuilt commitment to diversity and community-mindedness that's all but impossible in centralized spaces.

In fact, Discord is so successful partly because it simulates a federated system! They even call communities "servers"!

Server has special meaning to you, because you are technically well versed. They could as well have called it "community", "group", "instance" or invented something novel. But "server" fits the gaming background quite well, despite not technically being correct.

Sure. In Matrix we call the same concept Spaces.

I don't think the success of discord is based on appearing to be federated. It's more about giving communities a free, isolated space and the tools to structure and moderate them efficiently. And, for now, it's not overrun by technically inept boomers. Huge plus.