Re: A native internet protocol for social media

Melvin wrote:

> The challenge lies in creating a protocol that is interoperable, scalable,
> and allows users to have full ownership of their conversations.

It seems to me that we've previously developed architectural patterns that
address this need, at least we did for blogging. The key for blogging was
to use PubSubHubbub, now W3C WebSub <https://www.w3.org/TR/websub/>, as a
centralized means for accessing decentralized blog resources. The
authoritative source for a blog entry is the blog, or feed, to which it is
initially published, however, a blog entry can be accessed by many
subscribers, using WebSub's publish & subscribe protocol, without actually
accessing its home feed. WebSub allows blogs to be maintained without
subjecting potentially small blog hosts to the excessive content polling
and crawling that scales as the community of blog readers grows. A similar
architecture, which supports decentralized publishing but more centralized,
or federated distribution, could be one way to achieve a useful compromise
between content ownership and scalability.

A variant of WebSub, designed to provide publish/subscribe
for ActivityStreams, including ActivityPub, could be defined and
implemented. Would such a system address the balance you seek?

bob wyman


On Sun, Apr 16, 2023 at 2:25 AM Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> pá 14. 4. 2023 v 15:08 odesílatel Jacky Alcine <yo@jacky.wtf> napsal:
>
>> Agreed. And I don't see any sort of online platform being safe if it
>> removes things like moderation and increases the proliferation of digital
>> capitalism through cryptocurrency - both of which are nonconductive to a
>> safe online Web.
>>
>> Dorsey endorsed the current owner of Twitter - look where that went. I do
>> not have or put a lot of stock into things that can exalt those who fund
>> for the sake of it.
>>
>> It also goes without saying that making a new Internet protocol is going
>> to less to make change than working with expanding current systems to be
>> more interoperable.
>>
>
> In Tim Berners-Lee's book, "Weaving the Web," he posits that the Web is
> more of a social invention than a technical one. The challenge lies in
> creating a protocol that is interoperable, scalable, and allows users to
> have full ownership of their conversations.
>
> P2P systems offer a high level of ownership, but they struggle with
> scalability, particularly when it comes to navigating firewalls. On the
> other hand, centralized or federated systems provide good scalability, but
> compromise on user data ownership. In these systems, users share ownership
> with the website owner, who may potentially impersonate them or monitor
> their activities without their knowledge.
>
> A native internet protocol designed specifically for social purposes would
> empower users to maintain ownership of their data while also being capable
> of scaling to billions of users.
>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 14, 2023, at 04:04, Marcus Rohrmoser wrote:
>> > @hellekin, I couldn't agree more.
>> >
>> > Celebrities throwing cash won't make a respectful, vibrant community.
>> > The fediverse shouldn't become another centricash. It thrives on broad
>> > participation, sovereign operation and mutual respect among peers.
>> >
>> > Individual funding surely helps (I myself am running on an nlnet grant
>> > right now) but shouldn't be mission-critical to the fediverse as a
>> > whole.
>> >
>> > The fediverse must become much more inclusive to be noteworthy –
>> > currently we still have an unsurmountable divide of operators and
>> users.
>> > Brittle, bloaty, enterpriish standards & implementations manifest that
>> > divide. That must be overcome and evolved into participants.
>> >
>> > There's not much sense in discussing means without having clearly
>> stated
>> > the ends.
>> >
>> > Marcus
>>
>>
>>