I’ve been wondering about this for a couple of days. Having users-only instances could help with moderation and content visualization (think in beehaws.org pulling the plug on lemmy.world), while giving the freedom to different communities mods to treat their content as they want.
This would lend to three levels of administration/moderation.
- At community level: Mods can let their communities be run as they want
- At content-server level: By letting content-server admins run their instances with their own ethos. Letting people from certain users-only instances post, while other only read, and others are simply blocked.
- At users level: By letting users-only server’s admin to let their users access certain instances that are aligned with their own interest (no-porn instances, no-nsfw instances, etc.)
This can lead to a kind of meta-db, where instances can declare their ethos, and then be automatically peered, or automatically severed.
I think that the main benefit for this is that it’s easier for newcomers to visualize. While having mixed instances removes redundancies, having this separation allows for more streamlined experience for the users.
I think this could lead to better stability over time and less over head. One thing that was no fun to discover was, when my instance was down, I couldn’t auth with my account to browse other instances.
The thing I’m not sure about though is, why would you only run an auth only instance and what incentives do the users have to join yours over someone else’s?
So, why would I run a users only instances? Because I’m not interested in moderating the content nor I want to be liable to the content stored in my computer. By setting up a content server, I’m also potentially liable for the content people upload, and hence I need to moderate it. I want to acces, participate and create new content, but not held accountable to it.
On why would people join, I guess because if I can say what content I can access, and what content not, then I can set up a family friendly server. So I can allow kids and families to access it, by banning lemmingnsfw.org, for instance. Conversely, I can create a free4all server, where I allow to reach all the content in the fediverse no matter what. I can even set up a bot-only server, so you can run your bots on my server for a fee.
God I love this new fresh internet.
I think you are just seeing the future, maybe (obviously) in a simple way.
Instances will grow (in popularity, usefullnes, …) and choose which other instance they want to be associated with to promote whatever they like(more like-minded users, more knowledge, more eternal capitalistic growth, …)
I was also pondering about that. Even though I haven’t really looked into how it all works behind the scenes in depth, on high level I do think it makes a lot of sense to separate content hubs (communities) and consumers (users).
So, I was reading lemmy’s code, and seems to be doable. There also seems to be a system to which lemmy is compatible, called Matrix. Matrix seems to be a decentralised user system. Don’t know really how it works or why, though.
The issue is that content from any instance is physically hosted on the instance you access it from, which could lead to major legal consequences based on the data that might be hosted and the local laws.
If you want full control, set up your own instance. It’s what I’m gonna do as well once my financial situation goes beyond eating spaghetti all day
Huh, I guess? I didn’t understand most of what you said. But whatever is good for decentralisation is good for everybody, I think.
