The developer behind Pixelfed, Loops, and Sup, open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, respectively, is now raising funds on Kickstarter to fuel the apps’ further development.

The trio is part of the growing open social web, also known as the fediverse, powered by the same ActivityPub protocol used by X alternative Mastodon. The latter saw increased signups and use after the company formerly known as Twitter sold to Elon Musk in October 2022 and during the X exodus that followed the U.S. presidential election.

In the months and years following that sale, open source and decentralized apps like Mastodon and Bluesky (which uses the newer AT Protocol), have continued to grow their user bases, as people sought alternatives to centralized social media apps controlled by billionaires like Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

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Edit: Link to the kickstarter

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[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Never heard of Sup for some reason, gotta check it out.

[–] n2burns@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Sup hasn't been released yet, so that's probably why you haven't heard of it. Dan says beta testing launches early 2025.

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 13 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Is it really just one guy writing three different platforms?

[–] underscores@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's hundreds of other contributers, but he started them all and did the bulk of the work. The plan is to have more regular developers if they get enough donations.

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ah ok that makes sense. In my head this guy was maintaining four codebases which did seem impossible

[–] Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

It's not impossible if you are a good developer

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 9 points 4 days ago

PixelFed
SUP
Loops
fedidb
pubkit

Five.

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 days ago

Loops and sup started as upgrades to pixelfed and then got spun off.

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 7 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I'm really excited for it. I might actually be able to get my family off Whatsapp because of fuckerberg, but I can't get them to move twice. I'm debating pushing signal now, or waiting it out for sup

[–] something_random_tho@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The challenge with messengers like Matrix and WhatsApp (and I assume sup, correct me if I'm wrong) is that they don't encrypt the metadata like Signal's sealed sender. Knowing exactly who you talk to and how frequently is a very juicy target for the government ... And the government right now is orange Hitler and his ragtag team of muppets, so I trust that they'll abuse whatever power and knowledge they have to the utmost.

[–] just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

Lol fuckerberg, its too funny

(Sorry I don't have anything to contribute to this discussion)

[–] sudneo@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

I don't know how sup will be, but signal is a mature product, run by a nonprofit, with functional apps etc. I moved my group of friends and my family years ago and it has all the essential features. People want stuff that just works, especially for talking and communicating daily. I doubt sup will be the same level of maturity while also offering the same security and privacy features as signal does, at least for years to come.

[–] spaduf@slrpnk.net 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It started out as a major upgrade to Pixelfed's dm system and got spun off into it's own thing, same as Loops.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 7 points 4 days ago

Basically a tool to add encrypted messaging to the fediverse, using the Signal protocol.