this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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Imo Fediverse and instances is unnecessary jargon that presents a barrier to entry to new users.
As the OP said, Newsgroups, email etc ARE decentralized and people have been using them for decades.
What would you rather call them? I feel like you might as well be saying that cruise control is unnecessary jargon and is confusing to new drivers… Okay but would calling it acceleration latch be any less confusing for new drivers?
The defining characteristic of a new user is that they are unfamiliar with the system. You are never going to be able to reason around those who don’t want to learn something new.
What did you call Newsgroups and Email before "Instances" and Federation was coined?
Cruise control has been around for 50 years (email) and only now you want to call it acceleration latch.
It doesn’t matter how long something has been around if you are new to it.
Federation is a very old word that was, among other things, used to describe the creation of the Internet when the existing networks were integrated under Internet Protocol.
Electronic mail has, as far as I know, always been referred to as such. Even before the first modern email was sent over the ARPANET in 1971.
But your argument was the reverse of what happened. Everyone has been familiar with providers and servers for decades. Calling it an instance is unnecessary jargon.
I'm going to need a source for your claim that "Federation" has always been used to describe Internet services. The first use I heard was early 2000's to describe single sign on directory services.
Again, it’s a distinction. To put it another way it’s like saying shoes have existed for ever so “flats” is unnecessary jargon. It is more specific than just shoe, likewise instance is more specific than just server or install. For those who don’t know what an instance is calling it a server isn’t going to be any more educational.
Its use in that context has its own Wikipedia page. The original word is the same root as federal like the US, EU, Russian Federation, Canada, Etc.
The complaint is about marketing to regular people, not using a more specific word that technical people understand.
Lemmy users, "I have a large sign over my store called 'Flats' Why don't I get more people in my shoe store? "
Me, "Have you tried a sign that says 'Shoes' ? "
Your claim was that Federated / Instance was used from the beginning of the Internet. That link shows its current application of the word. I'm not trying to be hostile. I'd actually like to know if I forgot/missed something. I was involved in building the Internet 30 years ago.
Regular people freaked out when the start button stopped saying “Start”. My point is that you either want to know what an instance is or you don’t care. It being a different word doesn’t matter to those who want to know.
I’m not sure what part of the article you didn’t understand. Obviously the article came later as Wikipedia hasn’t been around as long even the World Wide Web let alone the Internet. Federation has always been used to describe multiple entities agreeing on a framework. Whether that framework is political or computational or anything else.
If you want people to use your service, you don't call it something different than the terminology that's been in use for 50 years. Everyone knows server and service provider. There is no reason to call it an instance unless you are in IT talking to other IT. I'm not going to tell someone to map an inode when I could say "folder".
The question I have is you claimed Federation has always been used as a term for interoperating Internet services but I don't remember that. The wiki is about how the word is now used to apply to Internet services. But that word wasn't used in the past. The big trade show I went to with Vint Cerf was called Interop, not Federate.
Just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…
As I said, I'm open to being corrected. You only showed a wiki article about how the word is now applied to the Internet. But your claim is that the term was around from the start.
I referenced Interop as an example of how the word Federated wasn't used to apply to the Internet. You need to support your assertion.
I provided links and you provided only your assertions. The onus is now on you.
But your link wasn't evidence of anything other than its current use. It doesn't have a single historical example which was your claim.
You said Federation has always been used to describe the Internet.
A wiki page showing current word usage doesn't prove anything!
And next up is instance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instance_(computer_science)
Your link references papers from 1970… since instance has been in use in computer science for over 50 years what exactly are you trying to argue? Did you even read the one on federation?
Seriously, just admit when you are wrong and move on.
YOUR LINK DOES NOT SHOW ANY HISTORICAL USAGE OF FEDERATION.
YOUR CLAIM WAS THAT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN USED.
If I claimed 'Gay' has always meant homosexual, and then linked to a Wikipedia definition of its current usage, that's not proof of anything!
What the fuck is wrong with you?
I ain't going to try the email analogy if I feel I should explain what Lemmy is, it can hardly be more confusing.
Seems pretty simple to me.
Explanation: "Do you use gmail? Do you have any friends that use outlook, or yahoo or something? Cool. So, you use one site, they use another, but everybody can communicate with everyone else? That's what the fediverse is like."
You know how email works, so you get it instantly, but for someone else it'll be like "I have a Red car, you have a Blue car, but we can both drive to the same place!!"
"Like who cares if I have Gmail ?"
I mean that'd be what people think IMO.
Better not trying to explain the fediverse by it's technology for starters, again IMO. Just explain what you can do, like there is twitter, reddit and forums or something more appealing.
I don't think someone needs to know how email works to understand it. They just need to have a friend who isn't using the same email service they are, and I bet just about everybody can relate to that.
*What is the fediverse? Ok, so do you use Gmail? Do you have friends that use Outlook or a company email? You use gmail, they don't, but you can still send messages back and forth. So, imagine that for twitter. Right now the only people who can use twitter are people who have accounts on twitter.com. Mastodon is like that, but you don't need to be on mastodon.org. It's like email, you can be on any mastodon server you want and you can talk to all the other mastodon servers. What makes it better? Say someone like Elon Musk comes in and changes all the rules. On twitter, you are stuck, you have to stay on twitter.com and you have to live with Musk's new rules. With Mastodon, if some jerk comes and takes over your instance, you can just move to a new one."
"what is a server"
You gotta up your pitch. But the part with Elon coming in and changing the rules is good IMO, that's why the fediverse is better and why I'm here, for example. Not because some revolutionary email tech 😉.