Serious question for those that this is relevant to: if you don't understand how ActivityPub works, even a little bit, why do you feel the need to have opinions on how it should work?
Isn't this backwards as hell? Shouldn't you try to understand how something works, then ask why it is that way and if it's intentional?
Too many people here have this strange opinion that they have some sort of privacy, even if their profile/posts are set to "public".
This is just simply not true. We're on the internet. There's over 20,000 Fedi instances and there's just no way to manually parse them to make sure there's no "bad actors" using your "public" posts for whatever the hell they want.
We already see this happening with things like NewsMast which is aiming to be a "news" app where their users don't have to login or register to a Fediverse server, yet they will see posts by Fediverse users from bigger instances based on "categories".
Maybe do some research about how the protocol works and how it's VERY opt-out to the core, before you have opinions on it. Just saying....
For me it was me looking up alternative social media platforms on Google, as I never had any liking towards the mainstream social media platforms in any way.
Then I chance upon this "Mastodon" and am intrigued by it.
I sign up for it....
I have been here 2 years and counting! :blobcatgiggle:
@frankie
I actually didn't use any of Facebook/Instagram or Twitter at all before coming here.
I might have heard of fedi via Reddit, I have interest in FOSS, decentralization and privacy, so it might have been from there.
I'm thinking I might stop using the term #fediverse#fedi or #activitypub when I want to talk about this community of federated social media services.
It's confusing and to be honest sounds way too much like a corporate brand trying to sell something.
I'm thinking I might start using something like "open internet" in general and "open social media" in particular to make the point that fedi isn't some specific thing; it's the default social media for the open internet.
I admit that it might be a bit of a "lies to children" (Pratchett et al), but it might be the first steps to carefully lead people away and towards a place where that brighter and wider future is visible.
I am using another term #Peopleverse, but not with intent for that to be a real name. More a vision for an online landscape that seamlessly aligns with our offline world and is in support of our daily lives.