@deadsuperhero @fediverse @quillmatiq Protocols described in these FEPs are currency-agnostic and developers can build actual platforms and solutions on them (as I did). This is the only ongoing effort to bring a payment layer to the Fediverse - there are no alternative proposals. FEP-8c3f was withdrawn in favor of FEP-0ea0.
Okay, you didn't know about it. But now you do and it would be nice to include at least some of that information in the article.
@deadsuperhero @fediverse You cite an abandoned project and withdrawn WebMonetization FEP and then say "most efforts have not advanced beyond the planning stages". This statement is misleading because those planning stages are far behind us. Mitra had subscriptions since 2022 and there are other projects that provide monetization options, like PeerTube Lightning plugin and PeerTube Premium Users plugin. FEP-0ea0 and FEP-0837 were published and implemented. Your co-author @quillmatiq should be well aware of these developments because we talked about it
Why did't you mention Mitra, the open source and fully decentralized Fediverse service that also offers paid subscriptions, and which has been around for several years?
@maegul @fediverse Some ActivityPub implementations already work as social media browsers. For example, my server can interact with microblogs, but also forums, blogs, events etc. The more activity / object types are supported, the closer software is to a browser.
@Ferminho @maegul This proposal describes a very simple marketplace, and some things were intentionally left out. However, it is based on Valueflows system which can be used to describe many different economic processes, including planning, production and transportation:
https://www.valueflo.ws/introduction/core/
So developers may use object types and properties defined there if they want to build something more complicated. And social interactions can be represented as standard ActivityPub activities. I think Valueflows and ActivityPub nicely complement each other.
@Emperor @MostlyLazy If the server doesn't process payments it should not cause admin a headache in most (?) jurisdictions.
Alternatively, one could focus on grey markets.
>Bitejo
By the way, Bitejo was planning to add federation, although now the future of the project is a bit uncertain. It might be added to Bitejo fork, as I suggested in this CCS: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/-/merge_requests/395#note_21836
@cyclohexane Today Instances also work as identity providers, but in the future identities are likely to become portable, and the only service provided by instances will be moderation.
@5dh @fediverse Financial incentive is not the only possible cause. If project leaders stop listening to their users for some other reason, you'll get the same result.
And there is another, more subtle problem: protocol bloat. Fediverse services are getting more and more complicated, and the cost of creating a new platform is constantly increasing. If this problem is not addressed, at some point Fediverse will start looking like a web browser market, where new players can't compete due to an immense implementation complexity.