Mastodon Brought a Protocol to a Product Fight | by M.G. Siegler | Dec, 2022 | 500ish:

But, but, it’s not a product, it’s a protocol. Yeah, that’s a nice thing to say. And to believe in. But I truly believe the ship has sadly sailed for such idealism in this space. Jack Dorsey can talk about how this should have been what Twitter was from the get go until he’s bluesky in the face. It’s just not going to happen. And he’s more to blame for that than most everyone else. As is he for the Elon element of this current equation. But that’s a different story.

I mean, who thinks this “Web” thing is ever going to unseat Prodigy or CompuServe - I’m don’t trust these link things, and it’s ludicrous to think people are going to host their OWN servers.

Snark aside - It’s probably dubious to expect everyone to host their own ActivityPub/Mastadon servers… But the idea should be sharding much more by identity/community rather than jumping onto the same service. That’s where the power begins, taking the control of identity and server control closer to people you trust, and spreading the social footprint far enough that no single pillar can take down the roof.