People here are satisfied with using the ActivityPub services and content with slow growth of a now sustainable but relatively small user group.

The people who want to use bsky just want a better Twitter. And bsky has delivered that. If that’s temporary, it’s better for them to use it while it lasts because Mastodon is absolutely not what those people using bsky want. Mastodon to them is technically worse than Twitter but something they may settle for if bsky wasn’t an option.

I wish that gained some traction.

I also wish it had a name that is easy to intuit a pronunciation.

I do worry that they’ll run out of money before they can do the work to let the ecosystem become sustainable by itself.

I’m mildly concerned about this as well.

You don’t need to access information via the relay. You can have a client get information directly from PDSes or Appviews that don’t get their information from the relay.

Lemmy needs to mature on a technical basis. The Lemmy service itself is still lacking significantly. But it it progressing.

Outside of technical limitations, focus on communities. A few good ones are better than many mediocre ones.

I hope they start supporting people who want to run an indexer. Right now they just point to their source code and say, “if you can get this largely undocumented complex service running on your own, you can run a indexer, but don’t ask us for any help”.

I’m not entirely confident that it will happen before their only funding source decides to cut off the cash flow.

there are distinct cultures between different instances and it is a strength of the Fediverse that instances are not just faceless pieces of infrastructure, i.e. pipes to content, but rather thriving communities with real people behind them.

Yeah, that deserves emphasis.

That instances are the interconnected nodes that make up the network.

I would even just use the word “parts” instead of “nodes”.

A bot shilling for Musk or a person shilling for Musk because they bought the hype are basically the same thing.

It’s the scale that changes. One bot can be replicated much easier than a human shill.

ZK-proofs

This is a solution in the same way that PGP-keys are a solution. There’s a big gulf between the theory and implementation.

The peering agreements are based on network traffic of the customers. Passing through costs to customers is always a thing.

Peering agreements have been around for a long time on the internet, they’re part the backbone of the internet.

Peering agreements for internet traffic, what a stupid concept.

Doesn’t help that they have offered no explanation at all.

Are you aware of https://granary.io/? It may be helpful for implementing your ideas

Discoverablility of what?

How would this help? What is the problem this addresses?

Many of the functions provided by a Mastodon service is split into separate services in the AT Protocol. This means there are instances that just handle an end users data, instances that just handle indexing and streaming out the amalgamated end user data being streamed to the “relay”, there are instances that are just filtering the stream from the indexing relay. so basically the various backend parts are modular with the AT Protocol rather than monolithic as is assumed by the ActivityPub protocol where separation is assumed to be only between the frontend and backend of the service.

Anything that you’re not willing and able to keep financially sustained yet rely upon will likely be used against you by someone with more resources. This is why groups like Fosstodon, Beehaw, and Fedihosting Foundation stand out in these spaces. They are both transparent and financially sustainable. But most of that sustainability relies on unpaid volunteer labor.

I’ve been using mojeek and ddg, but I’ve been considering setting up SearXNG on a server.

Are you talking about blusky’s indexer?