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.
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.