The fediverse is a state of mind.
Between three and seven years old(depending on definition) the fediverse is in expansion mode. Sometimes upwards but mostly outwards. The number of contributors is still not enough to scare the lumbering monoliths of web 2.0. but the trajectory certainly is. Unofficial data suggests the fediverse expanded between two and three per cent in the past eleven days alone.
But what is the fediverse besides being a state of mind? In more concrete terms the fediverse is a loose collection of web sites and web services in which communication can happen both internally between users of a site and also between their site and other sites. Communication is facilitated by open protocols usable by anyone. The predominant communication protocol between web sites in the fediverse as of dec 2018 is ActivityPub. A concrete example of how this works is if a user on one site posts a public message, sometimes known as a 'toot' and has their settings to share their 'toots' publicly then any websites with an agreement with that site would get a copy and post it to anyone who had expressed an interest in it. It is usually also posted in both a local and a 'federated' timeline.
Indeed federation is a key concept in the fediverse. This is the idea that unlike in web 2.0 where monolithic web giants emerged and four or five companies monopolised most web usage, in web 3.0 there will be thousands and then millions of web sites(nodes) which will negotiate ad-hoc agreements with each other. It will not be necessary for all sites in the fediverse to be linked to each other. Most people are predicting that the fediverse will mostly run on free and open source software(web 2.0 did and does also). So local operators(e.g. a political discussion group, a school, a religious community ) might decide to operate a closed node in the fediverse somewhate like a static website of the old web. Since the software to operate it is free to use for everyone all they need is someone who can set up and administer their node. And because the fediverse emphasises local control the users have some assurance that their communications are private and might even personally know the administrator of the site. And what if later that political discussion group decided to establish links to another node operating half-way around the world: they would negotiate face to face with the operators of the other node and agree exactly what information exchange they would allow. If they wanted they could for instance agree that they would not forward traffic on to third party nodes. And then they would just have to update their server's configuration and enter the details of the other node and any password keys and connect using their choice of protocol. Simple.
Users worried about their data security should still exercise caution of course. They will have to be selective about which services they sign up for. And because of the sprawling nature of the fediverse they may well have accounts with many more online service providers where before they may only have had one. But at the rate at which service providers are currently popping up in the fediverse an account management service which will log them seamlessly into their multiple accounts might be established in their locality in the near future.
'Tooting' is but one communication method in the fediverse. There are many others. Another big player in the fediverse besides Mastodon and Pleroma(both of whom provide micro-blogging) is peertube. Peertube is similar to many video-sharing web-sites from the old web. But peertube is not just one site. Anyone can set up an 'instance' of peertube just as with most of the services in the fediverse. A modest peertube instance might be say the audio-visual club in a college who decide to make student-focused documentaries they have shot available on their site. It might have a sum total of fifty videos. They could chose to heavily promote their own videos but at the same time provide access to any number of other peertube instances and thereby thousands more videos. Web 2.0 has given a bad name to online advertising but most people in a small town have no problem with the local cafe putting a sign outside advertising fresh pastries and coffee.
Blogs too are a feature of the fediverse. Before the social media revolution of 2002-2008 web logs were 'the' way ordinary people posted pulicly online. If a blog site such as write.as is operating using the ActivityPub protocol or any other free and open protocol which allows for communications between nodes in the fediverse then to follow someone's blog is usually as simple as clicking follow if it pops up in your main feed on whatever service instance you are using or just do a search for somebody@somewhere.something.
But remember the ActivityPub protocol doesn't just allow communication between a peertube instance and a peertube instance or a mastodon instance and a mastodon instance. It allows any site anywhere operating the ActivityPub protocol to communicate with any other just so long as the administrators of the two service instances agree to communicate. And they can use fine-grained controls to choose exactly what information to share. So a pixelfed(photo-sharing service) instance can choose to only receive pictures but not video that someone on a micro-blogging site has posted.
This is in many ways the realisation of the original vision for how the web would work. Instead of consolidated power in the hands of the few the fediverse by its very nature empowers local communities. It is de-centralised. The fediverse says that if an organisation in a small town of say one thousand people wants email services that maybe they will be better off paying a provider in the larger town of fifty thousand people located five kilometres up the road to provide them with that service rather than using an international behemoth who refuses to rule out prying into the content of the emails. The bad behaviour of the tottering monoliths of the old web has been exposed in the past few years. They have spied and lied, mis-directed and mis-informed. They have built multi-billion dollar empires at the expense of the rights of billions of people. They have also, in fairness, connected countless millions.
Which is not to say of course that the fediverse will be free from the taint of human corruption. It is in its earliest days a somewhat chaotic and wild experience. Bad actors will pose as the good. Data will be trusted to those with no track record, a non-zero percentage of whom will act in bad faith. Web 2.0 monoliths won't want to lose their dominance and will dip into their massive bank balances to avoid the inevitable. And they will relentlessly push the fact that you do not know who you are entrusting your communications in the fediverse to. The difference of course is that bad actors in small communities tend to be outed much more readily than powerful international players with countless millions of users and very deep pockets.
Circulating very much in the ether of the nascent fediverse is the idea that relentless tracking across the web is not o.k. Nor is a web site trying to install trackers on your web browser. The old 2.0 web monoliths have cast a blanket of silence over the public debate of the “do not track” protocol.
The fediverse is as of late 2018 in a highly changeable state. Everthing is in flux. The influx of users from the old web is not yet a torrent but it is gaining momentum. Every day new services are being proposed and multiple 'instances' of various existing services come online. Numbers are difficult to pin down but perhaps between two and six million are regular users(less than one percent of all web users). The services affiliated with the fediverse include micro-blogging, regular blogging, video-sharing, create a full website with yourname at somesite.someextension, email providers, next cloud storage(online storage for your files), photo-sharing, regular social networks, chat providers etc. Unfamiliar names to most are gaining traction: mastodon, pixelfed, hubzilla, friendica, pleroma, GNUSocial, funkwhale, littre.me, MediaGoblin, write.as and many more. Many services also exist to allow fans to donate money to content providers they admire. The fediverse is awash with creative types and free software developers who have often been poorly remunerated for the software and art and writing which they have freely given away under permissive licenses.
The rise of MOOCs in the past six years is very much in tune with the spirit of the fediverse. The sum totality of all human knowledge freely available is now more than ever a possiblity.
The internet has always been a melting pot of competing ideas, protocols and websites. The current state of the fediverse is very likely to look much different in five years time. Different protocols will jostle for supremacy, different services will emerge and some will fade. But the fediverse as an idea will almost certainly flourish. All the services currently in existence on the fediverse almost certainly exist in the old web. But the old web is characterised by walled gardens and each monolith wanting to provide you with all your web experience. The fediverse is open and by default connects across all co-operating websites. It wants to break down the un-needed walls of the internet and realise the original dream. It is not opposed to commercial activity, nor advertising but rather is likely to emphasise showing an adverisement for a hat on sale in the local shop instead of using an opaque algorithm which dictates: show advertisement for product xyz from multi-billion dollar retailer. And if you don't purchase hats you just might bump into your neighbour later that day who does.
The fediverse is a state of mind. The free software movement is give or take forty years old. The concept of free access to knowledge and technology is as old as humanity itself. The world is very lucky to have at the current time a very substantial and technically very sound body of free and open source software. To put this software to use to power the fediverse is a near perfect fit. Free unhindered communications are the lifeblood of the fediverse and diy hacked-together servers will be the pumps. The forces trying to exert undue control and influence will always exist. But the internet has unleashed a force more powerful than most could have guessed at only a century ago and fediversians are rapidly forging new communities and thinking up new services to offer. They are getting together on the weekend and bringing online new instances with like-minded individuals in their community.
The new fediverse is peopled by those who are probably just as flawed as those who created web 2.0 but there is a belief in a better future for the web. And the open and empowering nature of the fediverse is a better foundation on which to build. The fediverse believes local communities should use the internet to empower themselves to take control over the day to day running of their own lives; do not let it be outsourced to faceless ones. The fediverse rejects gross and unjust inequality. Gross disparities of power are not conducive to a better world. The fediverse says that knowledge is free. The fediverse believes in human freedom. The fediverse is open to everyone, no exceptions.
Anonymous.