Re: Let's turn aspiration into fact?

> On Feb 8, 2024, at 22:46, Sean Tilley <sean@deadsuperhero.com> wrote:
> 
> Fair. Here's my pitch:
> 
> The year is 2026. The Fediverse is looser, and more fluid than it is today. Rather than being tethered to specific instances, users can transition freely, from one space to another.
> 
> User migration works similarly to signing in to an instance with an app. An old account is authenticated against the new account, and the identity is verified. 
> 
> From there, the person can sign in from either space, treating their other Connected Actors as a relay that optionally announces posts from other accounts. 
> 
> Moving is as simple as declaring one Connected Actor as the primary one, but the user can also safely close those other accounts if they want. Changing the Primary Actor updates references from replies, mentions, comments, and search results, to the new account in question.
> 
> As part of this process, a user can easily update the Author field of all their old posts, or may alternatively pick and choose what things to bring with them. The process is largely invisible to people, they just one day notice that their friend's handle is different.
> 
> As far as user data is concerned, that's where things get really interesting. A user's data isn't just a bunch of notes, or status updates, or even one type of content. It's pictures, and videos, and forum threads, and private group chats. That data all lives in their main server, they just use a wide variety of clients to interact with all of that in different ways and forms.

Hey Sean,

That’s the kind of thing I had in mind! (I also like the vision a lot)

IMHO one of the “killer advantages” of the fediverse over walled-garden social media is that we can use N applications, not just one, where N can consists of multiple instances of the same software, or — more interestingly, to me — instances of different software. If this were easy — and it would have to become a lot easier than it is today, such as along the lines you outline — we’d outrun any centralized silo on features any day of the week, as anybody can add as many new applications into their personal identity federation as they want any time.

Cheers,




Johannes.


Johannes Ernst

Fediforum <https://fediforum.org/>
Dazzle Labs <https://dazzlelabs.net/>