this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2024
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Why's everything need to be so complicated, anyway? Can't we just have on sportsballgame and one twitgramface?
Ironically, the thing that would allow people to use one "twitgramface" account across all the various platforms is federation. But the only way I can imagine it being seamless enough for normies is native browser integration for ActivityPub, perhaps with a new URL scheme like
apub://.... Basically, save a Fediverse account in your browser, and when you open a foreign-instance link someone sends you, you'll see a prompt:How do you want to open this link (
apub:)?You can browse this content via your instance and interact with it with one of your saved Fediverse accounts, or choose an app you have installed:
☐ Remember my choice for feddit.nl
☐ Remember my choice across all instances
ⓘ Why am I seeing this? ︿
This content is on feddit.nl, which is an ActivityPub instance that 3 of your saved Fediverse accounts federate with. To use your account, open this link via your instance, or select Decline to use feddit.nl's default web interface.
So far, only browser extensions can do this, and not very well at that. Of course, all ActivityPub instances and clients would need to adopt this URL scheme whenever a link is shared between users, and the downside is that Reddit, Instagram, Twitter etc. will never recognize
apub:links. Do you think something like this can ever happen?Already too complicated unless it comes pre-installed on your phone as part of the setup process when you buy it.
Don't be that pessimistic, most users had to install Reddit, Twitter and TikTok apps. In the 2010s, grassroots chain emails and Facebook posts with guides to setting up WhatsApp went viral among boomers in my country, touting it as "free SMS". (Facebook camnot legally describe it as "free SMS" but they didn't bother correcting anyone of course.) The fediverse experience is already quite OK if you have a dedicated client but the problem is that not everyone does, which is why we need browser support; people are tired of "wOrKs bEtTeR iN ThE aPp" even if it's true this time. A dedicated URL scheme will automatically associate Fediverse links with any appropriate installed web/local apps. There are still other issues such as hit-and-miss cross-fedi-platform compatibility, no API for retrieving the list of federated instances and lack of appropriate error messages if the source and/or destination instance block each other.