Re:The problem with federated web apps
by FormerBandmate on Saturday July 01, 2023 @07:36PM
(#36556488)
Honestly a modern Usenet isn’t the worst idea. Isn’t it still used for piracy?
But email is a federated system itself. Complaining about having to sign up for a particular instance is like complaining you have to sign up to a particular email provider and not all of email.
IMO the difference is not really about federation, but about the degree of context and trust the user has--or can have--when it comes to choosing servers.
There's no guarantee that [email protected] is going to stick around forever, but there was a contract relationship plus a certain degree of too-big-to-fail-ness.
The problem with that was that email addresses are easily forged and Usenet lacked adequate spam filtering and content moderation tools because of its decentralized nature and the general lack of effective spam filtering in the late 90s/early 00s. So it was replaced by forums which were in turn replaced by social media.