This is a big problem. It creates the illusion that /c/cats on one particular instance is the real /c/cats.
This is the root of re-centralization and it must be pulled out.
This is a big problem. It creates the illusion that /c/cats on one particular instance is the real /c/cats.
This is the root of re-centralization and it must be pulled out.
What you are describing is a core mechanical artifact of how ActivityPub services work. Discovery across the network is difficult because it requires that your instance has information for you to discover. You can not “search the network” for content, you can only search your local instance for the content it has synced. In order to discover new content, you have to first know where to look. For instance, in Lemmy, that means going to the search page and typing !startrek@startrek.website, and clicking search. However, you first need to know that startrek.website is an existing Lemmy instance, but also that they have a StarTrek community (in this case, one would assume that would be true).
From there the overall content of your instance grows. The All feed is a representation of all content federated to your instance, which, will be shaped by the interests of the people on the instance you are a member of.
My understanding is, this works the way it does because it reduces the overall computational burden of the network. Content is periodically synced to instances where someone on that instance is interested in that content. The demands of consuming that content are then handled by the instance it was synced to, instead of say, 100s of instances all querying the data from the content origin every time someone on an instance wishes to view it. Then all the interactions from all the federated instances are pushed back to the origin instance so that it can be consolidated. I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea.
The reality is, ActivtyPub and the core ideology of the Fediverse are expressly anti-centralization. It will never be everything Twitter is, or everything Instagram is, or everything Reddit is, because it doesn’t want to be. That’s the whole point of Lemmy having Local, Subscribed, and All feeds. It lets you engage with the network at the scale you are interested in.
Now with that said, I do think there is a core issue with identity being tied to an instance, and it would be nice to find a way to divorce your identity from a service being hosted on an instance. That is a topic that has been discussed to death, and likely will have no movement on for a long time if ever.