jacab [he/him]

net user

  • 5 Posts
  • 40 Comments
Joined 11 months ago
cake
Cake day: November 10th, 2023

help-circle


  • I agree, the whole paradigm of activitypub instances being treated as little local web communities that can interact with one another from their respective websites in limited ways is very flawed if the goal is for it to catch on as an alternative to existing social media experiences.

    Although that’s not to say that paradigm is innately bad though, since it works fine for more tech-savvy people and is basically what hexbear has and works well with, but it’s a total non-starter for the average social media user.

    Personally I think that something along the lines of what you said is the only way activitypub will ever be able to exit the niche space it currently occupies. The user should not have to learn how it works whatsoever. Ideally the process of getting a friend to join should sound more like “Install this app or go to this website(which is a server-agnostic frontend), click register and pick a service provider(not an ‘instance’)” rather than “Find an instance, go to its website(which all look slightly different), create an account, and then inevitably end up with a disjointed mess of browser tabs on different instances because you clicked ‘View the full profile on the original instance’ while trying to find people to follow.”

    I’m not a developer, but it really feels like the fediverse movement is sort of trying to reinvent the wheel in a lot of ways. Also sorry for the long rambling reply, I’m bored at work.


















  • i used to ride my bicycle every day but during the winter i decided not to get squashed by trucks and started walking instead (the sidewalks didn’t get cleared, so i couldn’t bike on them and i absolutely wont share an icy road with cars).

    but come spring and summertime, i just preferred to keep walking. i think it’s mainly because it’s more leisurely, which makes it easier to transition between work brain and leisure brain during the commute.

    on my bike i still mainly stuck to the sidewalks (which is somehow fucking illegal here btw) since at least half of all american drivers want to either maim or murder bicyclists on the road, but i have to carefully move to the road if there is a pedestrian on the sidewalk or whatever ahead of me. so even though while walking i still have to be on fairly high alert for the red-blooded american patriots who think the stop signs in residential areas are suggestions, walking is just a more pleasant experience.

    i feel incredibly lucky that i live close enough to walk and bike to my job, especially so considering how deeply carfucked my city is, so my heart goes out to everyone who is forced to endure commuting by car or playing chicken with your life against american motorists as a bicyclist. wear a helmet.