What is the point of being able to replicate the software if you cannot use it to connect to your friend's network?
In fact, federation is what enable to centralize the network (arguably the mainstream media's strength) without having to centralize the power (arguably their misdeed).
If, in your opinion, the problem of big tech is not the centralization of power within a few hands, please explain what it is.

The Fediverse has no real users except the developers themselves

The Fediverse has 5 millions of users. I don' t think more than 100 of them are developers.

you can checkout hexbear.net which runs an older version of lemmy without federation, they are just as active if not more than lemmygrad (very similar userbase) the only difference is that they don't have to deal with the inherent problems of federation

Sure, if the goal is to build a filter bubble, then having to communicate with external users can be a problem. To add to this:

well i guess you missed the latest drama on lemmygrad where they where asking to purge all the liberals from lemmy.ml.

Lemmygrad users do not complain about the rest of the Fediverse speaking only about tech and federation, they complain about them disagreeing with their view.

In your example, you are assuming that the Facebook userbase actually cares about the messaging protocol.

When did I say anything of the sort? Why would they have to drop a functionnality just because a lot of people do not care about it? Before, people with no Facebook account could communicate with Facebook users via XMPP. Now they have to create a Facebook account for that. Facebook did not remove the feature because it was convenient for some users, they did it to trap more users in. This is the thing people want to escape with federation.

[–] leslieriver@fapsi.be 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The Fediverse has 5 millions of users. I don’ t think more than 100 of them are developers.

My bad. I meant that the people who actually make use of federation are almost exclusively programmers. The rest of the users don’t benefit from federation.

If, in your opinion, the problem of big tech is not the centralization of power within a few hands, please explain what it is.

The problem is not the centralization of power within a few hands, but the contradiction between the needs of the users and the needs of these few hands. It's okay to let a few hands hold all the power, as long as their interests align with ours. Your philosophical disagreement with this concept has very little effect on reality. As long as big tech can meet the needs of people, they will keep using their services. Federation is a tool that will make meeting the needs of people very hard, if not impossible. There are areas where the interests of big tech are in direct, irreconcilable conflict with those of users (e.g., ads; users want as little as possible, big tech wants the maximum). If you want to solve the problems of users, you should first figure out irreconcilable contradictions like this and then solve them without hurting the needs of people that are currently being met by big tech.

Sure, if the goal is to build a filter bubble

This is what the people want, everybody trying to use social media want filter bubbles, federation adds a huge and unnecessary obstacle to this, there is a thread now on lemmy where people are discussing ways to block entire instances.

Lemmygrad users do not complain about the rest of the Fediverse speaking only about tech and federation, they complain about them disagreeing with their view.

That's not what i said, like mentioned above i was trying to show you why filter bubbles are a necessity for anyone who is not an idealist fediverse advocate.

This is the thing people want to escape with federation

Which people are you talking about? The majority of the people don't have any problem with this, why should they change their ways because some nerds decided that making a facebook account is a sin?.

[–] ComradePupIvy@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If I may interject as a person who is not a programmer, and who is not an "Idealist" in online federation. I think that the biggest harm with the centralization of the internet is that similar account types cannot communicate. Think about the headache that would be had if to send an email, the domain name had to be the same. While I would not say it is a "sin" to have a facebook, I don't think making something federated adds any downsides.

If you want to live in your own instance, atleast with lemmy, you can just never leave the local tab, it is a choice to venture into the all, but that is a choice that is willing to be made. I personally like this and think it is a fair compromise. It also keeps the power from falling into just one entities hands, but other than that, going into all.

as for Lemmygrad pushing to de-federate, dieing out, or pushing for lemmy or other instinces to purge users, I have not seen that, the closest I have seen is a "this is why purges are necessary" and that is a comment ment for the in group, as lemmy.ml mentions they are a leftist website.

This whole thing is new, and social media like reddit, twitter and facebook is old relitivly, it will take time to get numbers to grow, but I genuinly don't thing federation is the thing that is going to break the growth.

also I think the term you are thinking of is "group think" or "echo chamber" and not cult, but I could be wrong so please correct me.

either way, that is my 2 cents.

[–] leslieriver@fapsi.be 1 points 2 years ago

Think about the headache that would be had if to send an email, the domain name had to be the same.

Think about all the headaches we have now because anyone with a domain can send spam emails to you. Email would have been much better if there were only a few, or at best, a single email provider. In fact, the reason why email is usable today is because we don't treat all domains as equal and put more trust in a few providers. The concentration of email users into a few domains is what allows it to be used by so many people today.

If you want to live in your own instance, atleast with lemmy, you can just never leave the local tab,

But users from other instances can still interact with local posts.

as for Lemmygrad pushing to de-federate, dieing out, or pushing for lemmy or other instinces to purge users, I have not seen that, the closest I have seen is a “this is why purges are necessary” and that is a comment ment for the in group, as lemmy.ml mentions they are a leftist website.

I didn't mean to single out any particular incident or group of users. I was attempting to make the point that federation is a major roadblock to the ability of every group of people to block "outsiders." Other important needs of people are also hampered by federation (for example, discoverability).