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:
- 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.
I don’t think the fediverse needs more platform alternatives.
What I really think we need is a way for people to use one fediverse account to log into different interfaces, so people can try out a new app / interface without starting a new account. Many apps can do this, but web apps generally cannot, they’re generally tied to an instance.
This requires having an identity that is separate from an instance. This is what nostr does and why I prefer it over mastodon. It also means if your mastodon or lemmy instance closes up shop, you don’t lose your post history, DMs, followers, etc.
couldn’t your instance just serve your identity to other instances?
If you are talking about something like openauth (where you sign into some random website using your Google account) yes, but your base identity is still tied to Google. So if Google goes down, you lose your google account, and you also lose your account at every other website you logged in to using your google account.
If you are meaning transfer your account from google to say office365, this is possible but there’s a few problems:
Some of these problems are solvable with some changes to the AP code. Some of them are not, at least not without a rewrite of the entire AP structure. Nostr sidesteps all these issues by simply not having your username tied to an instance in the first place.
Yeah, essentially that. The back-up plan in case your instance goes down is a separate issue, my main plan is just that users shouldn’t need a new account for each fediverse application they want to try, considering one account is already able to make any kind of post.
That’s not technically possible.
You could have one instance offer more than one platform, though, and you can already use multiple frontends with whatever instance you’re on. Kbin, which you’re on, actually tries to do the Swiss army knife thing IIRC.
You can log into a pixelfed app on android with a mastodon account. Why can’t you log into a pixelfed web frontend with a mastodon account? What law of physics makes that impossible?
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.
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.
It would still be a separate account, but yes, 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.
I’m OP.
I’m not sure why you’re speaking in the present tense about a suggestion I am making for the future.
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.
So why can’t you have some federated way to handle accounts?
Unless you changed activitypub, right?
It’s entirely technically possible. Apps already use third party identity providers all the time, you just need federated apps to support OAuth both for signing in on the client and as a backend identity provider, and standardize how federated apps return user info that would be common to any federated app (usernames, saved / liked posts, subscribed feeds, stuff common to the ActivityPub spec).
You could use the same credentials to open a new account on another instance, sure, I guess. You still have to create another user on the new platform with their own ActivityPub inbox and so on.
I guess to a non-technical user that might seem like the same thing, but then again so would your home instance allowing you to view other platforms. The second one would be way cleaner and easier on instance maintainers.