Anyone who has ever used a phone, drove on a road, mailed a letter, sent an email, or browsed the internet should realize how brilliant the Fediverse is; decentralized, federated systems are more robust, equitable, and long-lasting than centralized dictatorships.
That is exactly what the Fediverse is, except instead of being a collection of decentralized tiny social networks hosted on various servers throughout the internet, the Fediverse is just like that. You know, kind of like the real internet, where there are numerous decentralized computers linked to one another.
Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and other centralized platforms, like dictatorships where the boss controls all the resources, makes all the decisions, and reaps the rewards of your actions, are examples.
Wouldn't you like a social networking system that was more equitable? For a more thorough explanation of the Fediverse's operation, continue reading.
Mastodon: What is it?
Mastodon appears to be poorly understood by those who have only recently heard about it on Twitter and in the news. It's not what they're referring to at all; they're talking about it as if it were a brand-new, centralized social network. The Fediverse accepts a variety of social network server technologies, including Mastodon.
It's comparable to installing Wordpress on a web server, except that you don't need to do so in order to have a website that can be viewed by anybody with a web browser. Instead, you can create a website in a variety of various methods and still have it be accessible via any web browser. By the way, we'll get to the use of a plug-in to make Wordpress blogs a part of the Fediverse later.
Using Mastodon as an example of an automobile would be another analogy. Even though it's the only kind of vehicle on the roads, you can drive it anyplace that a car can go. Although there are others, this type is good. What would you think if Ford were in charge of building all the roads and determining which vehicle you were allowed to drive? Would we all still be commuting in dark Ford Model T cars?
The Fediverse: What is it?
A network of social networks is the simplest way to define the Fediverse. The ActivityPub standard is used by all little social networks to allow users to interact publicly with users of any other little social network.
A big social network with a variety of different technologies and non-segregated interactions is created by connecting tiny social networks, or "federated universes," together. Consider them as communities, some of which may be closed-off or open.
Email is a helpful example. You are free to select whichever email service you prefer, and you can send messages to anyone on any other email service from anywhere in the globe (and in space, too.) Any email client application is acceptable. Any email server software is available for you to use. Even better, create your own.
You can communicate with all of the other servers and users who are also utilizing those standards as long as everything complies with the open-source decentralized email standard regulations. The main distinction is that since social networks are public forums, all messages (posts and replies) on the Fediverse are visible to everyone.
The social networks that make up the Federated Universe have been developing for a while. On this site, I've written about it a lot. It began so long ago because rational individuals understand that centralized platforms like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, etc. are not built for sustainability. They are made to expand their user bases before beginning to control and profit from them as much as they can. Centralized organizations will eventually deteriorate and serve their own interests.
People constantly rebel for a more democratic and equitable system once they grasp the drawbacks of such dictatorships.
The idea of having one person in control of everything is much worse than one where society as a whole gets together, agrees on a set of norms, and says, "Hey, let's try not to screw each other over." The Fediverse is about everyone having an equal opportunity to participate.