Comment on What if we called instances providers?
Irelephant@lemm.ee 2 months agoYes, thats what I was thinking.
I was thinking about other decentralised networks people may use, and they all seem to use the word “provider”:
- Email provider
- Internet provider
- Usenet provider
MajorHavoc@programming.dev 2 months ago
That’s what resonates for me.
We don’t have email
instances, and email providers similarly block un-desired content, but there’s not a big fuss about missing out on specific types of spam. Lol.Similarly Internet service providers actually also block big blocks of malware providing domains, and accidentally sometimes block some great piracy resources. People who care learn to use a VPN or switch providers. Everyone else doesn’t have to think about it.
I’ll argue that The Fediverse also carries extremely similar switching cost as an email or Internet provider. For an average user, “Let folks you care to inform know where you moved, and maybe copy over some favorite bookmarks.”
Sure, different providers do try to bring different lenses on the same federated content, but most people aren’t served well by thinking about it on day one.
I think shifting to the term
provideris a lot more honest to the user about what to expect.