Why are there so many separate platforms in the Fediverse like Mastodon, Lemmy, PixelFed, and PeerTube? It feels like they could all be part of one unified platform.

Posts

Text, images, and videos could just be treated as posts, all with comments enabled.

Servers that don’t want to host videos could just have a setting to turn off video uploads.
- That would let PeerTube function like Mastodon when video support isn't needed.

Lemmy + Mastodon + PixelFed

They all do basically the same thing — let people post stuff. So why split them up?

Forums can still work like Lemmy. If you want your post in a forum, cool. If not, that’s fine too.

Matrix + Posts

As for messaging, I think Matrix could benefit from Signal-style encryption. Each message should be encrypted with a unique key, just like Signal does.

Add a button like “See recent posts by this user” on profiles.
- This would make it easier for people to switch over from Instagram or Facebook.

plugin-based development

I also think the Fediverse could grow faster if it were plugin-based, kind of like how Obsidian handles plugins. Development would be more modular and flexible.

Servers could choose which plugins to enable.

Devs could collaborate instead of reinventing the wheel across platforms like Mastodon, Lemmy, PixelFed, PeerTube, etc.
This would create a richer, more customizable ecosystem that evolves together.

Questions

Also, just a question from someone who’s not a coder:

Why not just copy Signal’s encryption model?

Summarize

Each user can create posts (with or without a forum), follow forums, follow other users, have private chats, and join encrypted rooms.

This is just some personal rambling, so feel free to ignore it. But if any of it sounds useful, please share it with other people, especially the developers.

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[–] JoeyJoeJoeJr@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Fediverse... Fed... Federated. Unifying it would defeat the purpose. Yes, there could be a single platform, with federated hosting, but multiple platforms working with a single protocol is a good thing.

Consider the web - in the old days, it was an open platform. Then Internet Explorer got a stranglehold, and to use the web practically required using IE on Windows (many sites did not work in other browsers). Eventually we righted the ship, but now Chromium browsers are taking over, and we're heading in a similar direction.

For the fediverse to remain open and effective, we should embrace extra platforms*. It prevents anyone getting too much control over the protocol, prevents lock-in, prevents centralization, etc.

*We should generally encourage use/development of the same protocol, though.

[–] happeningtofry99158@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Thank you! I totally agree with the idea of multiple platforms now. Though it is a pain to use fediverse on a single platform / app now, but I guess this problem will be solved once fediverse is matured enough.