Excited by the “fediverse” but wondering about the future (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by minim@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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In particular, it seems to me that centralization is almost a law of the universe (or at least a tendency). Lemmy may start decentralized, with dozens or hundreds of meaningfully-sized instances, but it’s easy to imagine a not-far future where most everyone has settled on just a handful of instances (or even just one).

I don’t mean to just be a pessimist here. I’m sure I’m far from the first person to wonder about this, and I’m curious whether there are ideas of how to counterbalance the tendency toward centralization.

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[-] apolinariomabussy@lemmy.calvss.com 27 points 1 year ago

Personally, I think it's less that centralization is a law of the universe and rather, things are cyclical. Atoms smash together to form molecules and amino acids and living organisms, and those organisms also break down eventually into smaller things again.

Likewise, with social networks and social hubs online, we've seen the cycle of centralization and decentralization of social networks, from disparate forums to web 2.0 social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, and now an attempt to decentralize social networks once again. Maybe it will last? Maybe it won't? But at least we have this space right now, at this moment in time. (Also even subreddits decentralize, e.g. subreddit about topic "x" and subreddit about same topic but named "true x")

Or maybe all of this is just my late night ramblings lmao

[-] Dalek@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

I think centralization is popular cuz it’s simple. It’s a lot easier to figure out one login for Reddit or IG than all the different instances

[-] WindInTrees@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Well technically you don't have to have logins for all the instances - that's the beauty of it

[-] N12@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

while that is true, finding and joining new /c's is klunky atm and not set up in a way that makes large growth likely

[-] ScottE@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Definitely. As much as a centralized /c namespace is against all the principles of a decentralized system, lack of a centralized namespace results in topical duplication and hinders discovery. I don't know how, but seems to me some sort of happy medium has to fall out.