"There can be at most one successful protocol for a given use case."

#EvanPoll #poll

@evan this one's nuanced for me.

I am somewhat disagree but only if the protocols play nice.

In the social media space, it seems as though ActivityPub and protocols that proceeded it that you were also a part of, came first. (Correct me if I'm wrong, I barely know about all the different protocols)

If that's the case, it's really on the other protocols to play nice and show that they support open communication.

However, that's not happening, so I lean towards agree.

I'm somewhat agree.

I've mentioned before how Metcalfe's Law (value of network is proportional to the square of the number of nodes) means that if you divide a population in even halves, each half has a quarter of the value of a united network, and the sum is only half. The math gets worse if you divide in thirds, fourths, or more.

So, a network divided by incompatible protocols will not reach its full potential.

For some people, that might still feel like success. A half dozen incompatible protocols, sometimes bridged and sometimes not, maybe with some dual-stack nodes to spice things up a bit. The medium makes do.

So, somewhat agree, for varying definitions of success.

I think if there's a chance to get the whole network connected, and you can get full flourishing value, you have to try.

I think of the postal network, phone network, email, and the Web. They all have one form of addressing and delivery; one protocol. It took a long time to get there, and a lot of it is effected with bridges, but the benefit has been unbelievable.

If you believe that the medium matters, you have to give it a shot.

@evan i see where you're coming from but i think that social networks are not the same as any other communication network. there's an element of community and community management that isn't present when you're just communicating or just publishing. w/r/t metcalfe's law, as harsh as it may sound, some people bring *negative* value to the network. some networks have negative value. there are some networks i don't want to be part of, and some people i don't want to be reachable or to be reached by

@evan however: i am ambivalent about having this disconnection happen at the protocol level vs. at some kind of access control or filtering/message-dropping level. sometimes it's "enough" to just mute or block or make myself invisible. other times, i don't want to even exist in certain spaces or on certain protocols.

@trwnh right. You've managed to learn how to avoid web sites you're not interested in, even though your browser uses HTTP.

@evan Well, no, websites are a publishing medium and I don't go around visiting every website in existence, nor does the existence of some website imply anything about *my* website. But there's a social salience in saying "Oh, I'm not on [network]" even if [network] has billions of users. It's like living off-grid -- you explicitly choose not to participate in the primary network, and build your own. In other words, if there was only one protocol, it would become necessary to invent another one.

@evan In much the same way I might say "I don't have a phone number" or "I don't have a Facebook account", it's not about the total user count. The fact is that me being on those networks actually provides net negative value in my life.

@trwnh Why? You can also say, "I'm not on email, I don't have an email address." You don't have to invent a new email protocol or use X.500 or Banyan Vines in order to be off the Internet email network.

@evan New protocols are born when there is a reason for them to exist. In a world where SMTP is everyone's solution for transferring bytes from one place to another, all it takes is for at least two people to say "hm actually no we can do something else". Consider those apps that exist solely for a person and their monogamous partner. Could they be standardized onto a single networking protocol? Well, they all use TCP/UDP (probably), but that's an implementation detail, and the network is above.

@evan So I'm inclined to say that having a single "network" in application layer or higher is not really a possible or desirable state. There are always reasons why someone will want to establish an alternative network. At some point, some need arises that makes someone actually do it. The most you can hope for is a broad majority on the one protocol of your choice, which handles ~everyone's use case sufficiently well. Or ~everyone you care to talk to, anyway. And most protocols aren't there yet

@evan Probably the closest is HTTP, but even HTTP has various niches in which some other protocol is better. There's gotta be a reason for the continued existence and usage of things like SMTP, XMPP, FTP, SFTP, DNS, and so on, other than historical ones, for passing some blob of text from A to B. Could we do all these over HTTP? Maybe! Should we? Also maybe! But will *everyone* switch to HTTP? No. Heck, even the transport layer has options between TCP and UDP -- and possibly even QUIC!