I don’t think many people understand that if they use Lemmy or kbin, they are posting to the fediverse. There are other platforms and will be more to come. Referring to a post on “Lemmy” or “kbin” is like saying you saw a post on your Windows or Mac computer.

We should be referring to it as…

  • I saw it on the fediverse.
  • Hey fediverse users …
  • A thread on the fediverse…

New terms may emerge but referring to the platform seems weird, almost ignorant.

edit: A better example is email. You wouldn’t assume everyone is on Hotmail because that is the email provider you use. You say I’m sendingan eamail, not I’m sending a Hotmail.

  • richard_wagner@lemmy.world
    4·
    1 year ago

    This is going to reveal my ignorance:

    How does the federation work from a high level? On Reddit, data is stored and managed by Reddit.

    How about the fediverse? If the data isn’t centrally located, what is stopping some data from just being lost at any time? Who owns the servers?

    If the servers are owned by anyone who wants to own a server, I assume there will still be popular servers that get the most traffic. And if those servers have high traffic, how will they sustain that model? How do they “keep the lights on” without ads?

    Thanks for helping me understand.

    • Chozo@kbin.social
      7·
      1 year ago

      My understanding is that most instances are currently being either self-funded (sort of as passion projects), or accepting donations to cover hosting/maintenance costs.

      Buy your local admin a coffee!

    • imaqtpieA
      3·
      1 year ago

      https://lemmy.world/comment/20357

      This comment was very helpful when I first joined. Long story short, each server is locally storing data for its own users and communities, and also for external communities that at least one user is subscribed to.

      Everything is either self or donor funded, and it is my understanding that this model can scale quite a bit without a crazy amount of donations.

      But if we get into instances with over a million users, I’m not sure when/if the donor funded model eventually breaks down. That’ll be a good problem to have though, because it means this platform will have been a massive success.

      • richard_wagner@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        Awesome, the comment you linked was super helpful. Thanks!

        To summarize for my own understanding:

        • the federation protocols (whatever they are) dictate that data is replicated across instances. So my data could be stored in multiple DBs. No one person owns it. (So I should be careful what I post 😅)
        • If my instance goes down, I won’t be able to use my account created on that instance
        • If another instance goes down, I’ll be able to read older posts from that instance, but maybe not newer ones since they won’t be reliably be replicated

        The main goal with the fediverse right now is traction, so we should just be focusing on using it as much as possible and figure out sustainability later.

        • imaqtpieA
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yup, that all seems right.

          Totally agree, once we have a strong, sustainable community in place, all of the theoretical issues can be fixed as they pop up. The flexibility of federation gives us a lot of options in terms of developing the platform. We don’t have to be locked into one vision or plan, different instances can create their own solutions and servers can learn from each other in terms of what seems to be working best.

          I get so excited every time I start talking about where this platform is headed 😊

        • Cat@kbin.socialOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          Bang links work for users on Kbin.

          If that is Lemmy creating the URL or kbin seeing the bang format and using it, I don’t know… off to find out :-)

          edit: experimenting here !kbin
          edit2: I think Lemmy is creating a regular link out of that. My bang above was not auto converted on kbin.

      • bvanevery@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        That’ll be a good problem to have though, because it means this platform will have been a massive success.

        I dunno, could be a repeat of Eternal September.

    • bvanevery@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      How does the federation work from a high level?

      Well, Captain Kirk goes out on the flagship and kicks some serious alien ass. Contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t usually screw it, but he is almost contractually obligated to have his shirt torn. Spock bails him out with derisions of Something Something Diplomacy, I forget exactly what. And that’s how the federation works. At a high level.

      At a really high level, they all get zapped by plant spores and turn into hippies.

    • Cat@kbin.socialOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Good question. Not ignorant. The one thing we use all the time but never think of as federated is email. Multiple users from different providers can reply all and everyone gets a copy. That is one way to help think about how the fediverse works. People using kbin and Lemmy have replied in this thread. We all see it. we are just using different providers/software to read and reply in the fediverse.

      Others have already commented well on funding.