F
I feel like I've had a reasonably decent grasp of the way things currently work in practice. I'm trying to make sure I'm wrapping my head around how it would work based on this new information you've given me.
Would you liken this to like a single sign-on system? When someone follows you, they follow your sign-on handle and they would receive anything you posted from any service while logged in with that handle? Wouldn't that need a centralized sign-on service of some sort?
If you enjoy a Twitter like experience and want that kind of an experience on the fediverse, you sign up for a mastodon account or one of the other Twitter style micro blogging activitypub platforms.
If you want more of a picture focused Instagram style experience, sign up for a pixelfed account.
The beauty of the fediverse is that it's really whatever you want it to be. You got options. Which can be overwhelming, for sure. I think it's great though.
You don't sign up on all of them. You sign up on the one, or few, that provide the services and features you're interested in using. And you use that, or those, to interact with anyone on any activitypub based server, running any of the dozens and dozens of different activitypub based software platforms.
That's not a flaw of activitypub. That's its primary feature.
/Continued
Mastodon, Pixelfed, Friendica are 3 examples (of many) of completely different software platforms that serve completely different intents and have different features sets that mirror/mimic their contemporaries like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The difference is that the former share a common backend component that allows you to interact with each other across the various platforms, whereas the latter do not.
/Continued