Discussion
ChatGPT mostly reflects what's already out there, the internet, Reddit, different communities.
Which means chatting with it is a bit like chatting with what the world currently thinks, bias and vice, trolls included, but also real discussions.
So, I asked it about the Fediverse. I would say that it sounds not too "wrong".
What's your take?
This is the convo:
So it regurgitates shit that others have written, such as the tech writera who typically stopped by for 5 minutes and are still shrilling on X. At the same time blowing shit up your arse.
@SuperMoosie yes, basically. But between all the shit there are some gems of good points.
It doesn't have good points.
It isn't intelligent.
It regurgitates.
Any one who thinks it has good points ISN'T intelligent.
ME: be honest with me, does the fediverse have a future?
ChatGPT: Short answer: yes — but not as “the next Twitter.”
Honest, non-hype take 👇
The fediverse does have a future because
The problem it solves is real and permanent
Centralized platforms will keep enshittifying. That cycle isn’t going away. The fediverse is the only large-scale, working alternative that breaks the ownership + control model.
Protocols outlive platforms
Email, RSS, SMTP, XMPP — boring, resilient, decades old. ActivityPub fits that lineage. Even if Mastodon vanished tomorrow, the protocol wouldn’t.
Institutional adoption is starting (slowly, but meaningfully)
Universities, NGOs, EU institutions, libraries, public broadcasters, and governments experimenting is a very different signal than VC hype.
It already won in niches
Tech, open source, academia, civic orgs, journalism. Not hypothetical — it’s happening.
ChatGPT: But here’s the hard truth
It will never win mass consumers by default
Most people:
Don’t want to choose instances
Don’t care about federation
Want “just works” + dopamine
UX and onboarding are still bad
Not “a bit rough” — objectively hostile to non-technical users.
Fragmentation is both feature and tax
Freedom comes with coordination cost. Always has.
No dominant economic engine (yet)
That’s good for values, bad for speed and polish.
So what kind of future does it have?
Think less Facebook and more email + blogs + podcasts.
The fediverse is likely to become:
A public digital commons
The default for civic, academic, and open communities
A fallback when platforms implode
A substrate other products build on (not a destination itself)
It’s not a replacement.
It’s infrastructure.
Me: what would be a scenario that generates mass adoption?
ChatGPT: Alright, mass adoption is possible — but it requires a very specific chain of events. Not vibes, not “people waking up,” but structural shifts.
Here’s the most realistic mass-adoption scenario, step by step.
1. A distribution shock (not a moral awakening)
Mass adoption never happens because users care about ethics. It happens because something breaks.
Examples of shocks that could do it:
A major platform locks accounts behind pay / identity / region
A catastrophic algorithm change that kills reach for everyone
Government-forced platform exits (EU, Brazil, India, Canada)
AI-generated spam overwhelms centralized moderation
A platform collapses financially or politically
Key point:
People don’t migrate to the fediverse.
They flee from something else.
ChatGPT:
2. A single “boring” on-ramp brand
Not Mastodon. Not “the fediverse.”
Mass users adopt brands, not protocols.
Think:
“Threads, but you can leave”
“Public Square”
“Gov.social”
“Campus.social”
“News.social”
Behind the scenes it’s ActivityPub.
Up front it’s just an app.
👉 This is email vs Gmail logic.
ChatGPT:
3. Zero-knowledge onboarding
To reach mass adoption, users must not know federation exists.
Required:
No instance choice at signup
Auto-migration later (optional)
Handles that look normal
Invisible federation repair when things break
Federation becomes a power-user escape hatch, not step one.
ChatGPT: 4. Default presence of people who already matter
Network effects don’t bootstrap themselves.
At least one of these must happen:
Journalists + public broadcasters move en masse
Universities and schools make it default
Government communication mandates it
Celebrities get auto-mirrored accounts
News organizations publish from it
People join to read, not to post.
ChatGPT: 5. A moderation layer that scales politically, not perfectly
This is critical.
Mass adoption requires:
Clear jurisdictional moderation
Blocklists as infrastructure
Community norms over global rules
Appeal paths that feel legitimate
The fediverse can do this — but only if it stops pretending moderation is optional.
ChatGPT:
6. A sustainable but boring economic model
Not ads. Not crypto. Not VC.
Likely winners:
Institutional hosting (gov, edu, media)
Paid “pro” hosting tiers
White-label instances
Managed moderation + compliance
Identity / verification services
Think WordPress.com, not Facebook.
ChatGPT:
What mass adoption would actually look like (important)
It would not look like:
Everyone on Mastodon
A single global timeline
Viral growth curves
Creator monetization explosions
It would look like:
Tens of thousands of instances
Millions of users who don’t know what ActivityPub is
Multiple apps interoperating quietly
Periodic migrations during platform crises
Boring, slow, durable growth
In other words: email-level adoption, not TikTok-level hype.
ChatGPT:
Why this hasn’t happened yet
Because we skipped step 2 and 3.
The fediverse tried to:
Educate users first
Sell ideology
Expose complexity early
Mass systems do the opposite.
@mapache@hachyderm.io absolutely agree with this. People don't care about the underlying tech. They care about tech that fits a need. At the moment I'm attempting to find communities of people that are interested in investing in their own social communities.
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