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What if we called instances providers?
(lemm.ee)
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this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2025
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I was thinking the same. Provider is easier to understand, and used in daily life contexts.
How would the word be used in our context? The Fediverse provider?
But I think I associate the word with money related activities and I'm not a fan of that.
I would think the jargon would be "I chose fedia.io as my Lemmy provider," or similar for other federated platforms.
Oh god no. That's like "I chose Burger King as my McDonald's provider."
Not really. In that metaphor it's more like, "I chose the McDonald's down at the corner to get my Big Mac instead of the one across town."
"I can get a Whopper from McDonald's and I don't have to see any crap from Papa John's because McDonalds is defederated from them."
Provider doesn't make any sense when the content is coming from other places.
But Burger King and McDonalds are the same type of entities.
Fedia.io and Lemmy are different. Your example would be "Lemmy as a Piefed provider", or "Feddit.org as a feddit.uk provider"
Yeah it's even worse than that.
fedia.io is a specific "provider" in this context. fedia.io runs on mbin. Lemmy is analogous to mbin. Many "providers" run on lemmy: lemmy.world, lemmy.dbzer0.com, lemmy.wtf, etc.
What is being provided is fediverse access. "Fediverse" is not my mostest favorite term, but it's the one that's most accurate.
There's a discussion on !fedibridge@lemmy.dbzer0.com about a name for Lemmy/Mbin/Piefed, as they are actually compatible. Mastodon and the others always feels a bit finicky. Feel free to contribute.
Fine, "I choose Burger King as my hamburger provider but I expect to be able to access a Big Mac from Burger King unless they are defederated."
Ok, have it your way then
"I use Vodafone as my phone provider. Can't call people in North Korea because they cut that connection. I might have to choose another provider that still allows me to call there".
I mean, it's not like that at all, but it's ok to not care for it still. Lemmy is a federated platform, just like Pixelfed is, and Mastodon, etc. Those would be the providers in the example from before.
Edit to add: Literally every time the word "instance" comes up in the manner noted above, it's woth regard to a Lemmy instance, or a Mastodon instance, and rarely if ever have I noticed a reference to a "fediverse instance". I have no clue where your comparison comes from.
Lemmy is a server application. Mastodon is a server application. Pixelfed is a server application.
I don't use Lemmy. Never have. And yet here I am.
"I recommend feddit.uk as a Lemmy provider for people living in the UK"
"Feddit.org is a good provider for German speakers"
That's a good thing. It costs money to provide services to people. The Fediverse is no different.
Yes, thats what I was thinking.
I was thinking about other decentralised networks people may use, and they all seem to use the word "provider":
That's what resonates for me.
We don't have email
instances, and email providers similarly block un-desired content, but there's not a big fuss about missing out on specific types of spam. Lol.Similarly Internet service providers actually also block big blocks of malware providing domains, and accidentally sometimes block some great piracy resources. People who care learn to use a VPN or switch providers. Everyone else doesn't have to think about it.
I'll argue that The Fediverse also carries extremely similar switching cost as an email or Internet provider. For an average user, "Let folks you care to inform know where you moved, and maybe copy over some favorite bookmarks."
Sure, different providers do try to bring different lenses on the same federated content, but most people aren't served well by thinking about it on day one.
I think shifting to the term
provideris a lot more honest to the user about what to expect.Provider has the connotation of being a paid provider for services. While it’s a technically accurate analogy, I prefer the more abstract comparison of considering the fediverse a meeting place rather than a paid service since it’s a mostly volunteer and self hosted network compared to email.
I disagree. Gmail is my email provider. I don't pay for it. (Yeah I know they are taking ad revenue.)
Instance is unnecessary jargon.
Indeed, but unfortunately there's no word for a volunteer provider as far as I know.