2025-02-03 10:47:21

lucas3d@mastodon.social

An impressive list of the Fediverse developments. So many projects and variety!

But for some of them, I wished they unified their force and created one better alternative. One of them is a Facebook replacement.

We are cruelty missing this, especially now!

#fefiverse #facebookalternative #facebook #friendica #ActivityPub
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/113938360501257214

show all 14 comments

2025-02-03 11:40:31

tanavit

tanavit@toot.aquilenet.fr

@lucas3d

What is missing in Mastodon to be an alternative to Facebook ?

2025-02-03 13:59:56

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@tanavit In fact, what is missing in Friendica to be the alternative to Facebook as which it was designed and positioned almost 15 years ago?

Or, @Lucas Janin ?? ??, do you mean not a Facebook alternative, but an all-out Facebook clone, just like Pixelfed is an Instagram clone, Lemmy is a Reddit clone, and Mastodon tries to be the Twitter clone that Bluesky actually is? Something that looks and feels and handles exactly like Facebook, and the only thing you have to get used to is the different name and the different URL?

What's it with everything needing a 1:1 clone in the Fediverse? "Literally $COMMERCIAL_PLATFORM without $CEO and with ActivityPub, but otherwise identical to $COMMERCIAL_PLATFORM"?

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #Clone #Friendica

2025-02-03 14:21:37

tanavit

tanavit@toot.aquilenet.fr

@jupiter_rowland

Then I will rewrite my question : what are the differences between Friendica and Mastodon ( or X and Facebook) ?

I neither use these social networks (except Mastodon o.c.)

2025-02-03 15:02:39

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@tanavit ? and Mastodon are social media applications. They're all about churning out content and/or following those who are super-famous and receiving their content. The follower is the fan, the followed one is the idol. It's pretty one-sided.

On ? and Mastodon, you've got fans.

Facebook and Friendica are social networking applications. They're all about bidirectional connections. Ideally, they're about getting into and staying in contact with people whom you know from elsewhere already.

On Facebook and Friendica, you've got friends.

As for differences in features between Mastodon and Friendica (and the Friendica descendants Hubzilla and (streams), both created by Friendica's own creator), I've made a number of comparison tables. They should make things clearer.

Key differences:

Alternative to:
Friendica: Facebook
Mastodon: ?

Purposes:
Friendica: social networking + long-form blogging + short-form blogging + photoblogging/mediablogging + discussion groups/forums + cloud file storage
Mastodon: short-form blogging only

Groups/forums (like Facebook groups):
Friendica: supports both public and private groups and has over 200 public groups right now already
Mastodon: doesn't even understand what groups are

Threaded conversations with 1 post and any number of comments like on Facebook or Reddit or Tumblr or any blog out there:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: doesn't even understand them

Replies work without mentioning everyone:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Character limit:
Friendica: 200,000 (as far as I know)
Mastodon: 500

Images:
Friendica: unlimited number of images can be embedded in-line anywhere in the post; they're stored in a cloud file storage that's part of your account
Mastodon: 4 images, and they have to be file attachments, even in posts that come in from outside

Text formatting:
Friendica: If a blog can do it, Friendica can do it. All of it.
Mastodon: can only show text formatting and only a tiny subset of it

Can be used for long-form blogging:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Quote:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Quote-post:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no; can't even properly display quote-posts from outside

Multiple profiles per account which you can assign to different connections:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Make your default profile private:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no, and you've only got that one profile

Profile fields:
Friendica: dozens
Mastodon: 5

Make your account timeline private:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Subscribe to (follow) RSS/Atom feeds:
Friendica: yes
Mastodon: no

Built-in file space with file manager, subfolders and access permission control:
Friendica: all of it
Mastodon: none of it

Event calendar and support for event-type objects:
Friendica: yes and yes
Mastodon: no and no

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #Twitter #? #Mastodon #Friendica

2025-02-03 15:18:43

tanavit

tanavit@toot.aquilenet.fr

@jupiter_rowland

That is clearer now.

Thanks.

2025-02-03 18:08:44

Lucas Janin 🇨🇦🇫🇷

lucas3d@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland I believe the success of Mastodon and Pixelfed stems from their ability to offer a solution that retains the advantages of commercial platforms while eliminating their drawbacks.

Most people fear change. Therefore, I believe Friendica will be more appealing if it adds some missing features: improving the user interface, adding a mobile app, and expanding functionalities such as event management, group features, and multimedia sharing.

I created an account to investigate it.

2025-02-03 18:08:44

cbontenbal

cbontenbal@fe.disroot.org

?

2025-02-03 20:43:48

bob

bob@diaspodon.fr

@lucas3d @jupiter_rowland Did you try #Hubzilla ? It seems to have all those "missing features".
(except maybe the mobile app, I don't know, I don't use apps)

2025-02-03 21:00:45

Lucas Janin 🇨🇦🇫🇷

lucas3d@mastodon.social

@bob @jupiter_rowland I didn’t try yet #hubzilla. But, the main issue is how many user is active (MAU).

- Mastodon : 736,367 https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon
- Pixelfed : 330,001 https://fedidb.org/software/pixelfed
- Friendica : 4,474 https://fedidb.org/software/friendica
- Hubzilla : 946 https://fedidb.org/software/hubzilla

It's disappointing to see that the usage is very low. It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to move people away from Facebook with networks of this size.

2025-02-04 09:20:33

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Lucas Janin ?? ?? But Mastodon, Pixelfed, Friendica, Hubzilla and the other server applications aren't enclosed networks. They are not walled up against each other, just because they're different.

This is something that even some people who have joined Mastodon in October or November, 2022, running away from Musk, don't understand: They are all connected with one another.

When you're on Mastodon, you can follow Pixelfed accounts, Friendica accounts, Hubzilla channels.

When you're on Pixelfed, you can follow Mastodon accounts, Friendica accounts, Hubzilla channels.

When you're on Friendica, you can follow Mastodon accounts, Pixelfed accounts, Hubzilla channels.

When you're on Hubzilla, you can follow Mastodon accounts, Pixelfed accounts, Friendica accounts.

When you're on Hubzilla, you don't have under 1,000 users to connect to. You have well over a million users to connect to. Just like everyone on Mastodon.

I mean, sure, if you're on Mastodon, you can't really see where a post in your timeline comes from. Everything seems to be from Mastodon unless it looks too weird or too "broken". Thus, many Mastodon users believe they're in a Mastodon-only bubble, and that Mastodon is not connected to anything else.

So it may be hard to notice that @bob and I are both on Hubzilla ourselves. And yet, our comments can be seen on Mastodon timelines.

Also, truth be told, I can't really see Hubzilla with as many users as Mastodon. It has a massive learning curve. It has default settings that actually make it not work for those who approach it like Mastodon (register, log in, configure nothing, use it with default settings). Hundreds or thousands of aspiring Hubzilla users must have thrown in the towel because they couldn't follow Mastodon accounts, because nothing on the UI tells them they have to "install" an "app" for that first.

And Hubzilla has even more features than Friendica. It's a decentralised social content management system. It comes with features pre-installed that even WordPress doesn't have. If Friendica is the Swiss army knife of the Fediverse, then Hubzilla is the Leatherman Surge of the Fediverse.

There simply aren't that many people out there who need a WebDAV/CalDAV/CardDAV server with their social networking identity. Or up to three ways of publishing long-form texts. Or wikis. Or even static webpages. And I'm not kidding, Hubzilla has all of this.

In fact, I guess most people would be happier with (streams) rather than with Hubzilla if it was more widely known, and if it had many more public instances and a place outside (streams) itself where these instances are listed. At least if it weren't for the fact that dedicated native mobile apps for both are not only unavailable, but almost unthinkable.

(Don't bother looking up (streams) on the FediDB. You won't find it. It isn't there. (streams) is intentionally kept away from the FediDB, from Fediverse Observer, from The Federation and from all similar Fediverse stats and instance-listing sites. Also, it intentionally had almost all nodeinfo code removed, and it intentionally does not send any statistics.)

For those who have missed them: Here are my Mastodon/Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams) comparison tables.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)

2025-02-05 15:40:48

Lucas Janin 🇨🇦🇫🇷

lucas3d@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @bob I understand that I can follow people from another platform through an activity platform. I use it regularly.

Unfortunately, for the average Facebook user, the concept of federation within the platform is difficult to grasp, especially with all the different Mastodon instances. I tried using the email analogy, but it's more challenging now since most people are on Gmail.

Therefore, the idea of following people from another platform will require a lengthy teaching process.

2025-02-05 16:04:25

Lucas Janin 🇨🇦🇫🇷

lucas3d@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @bob The main issue with the fediverse is discoverability.

I try to use https://fediverse.info. But it's only for looking for hashtags, not the people name.

If the profile is public, there should be an easy way to find people, ideally through an export of the Facebook friends list.

I may be missing something; let me know.

2025-02-05 16:50:11

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Lucas Janin ?? ??

Unfortunately, for the average Facebook user, the concept of federation within the platform is difficult to grasp, especially with all the different Mastodon instances. I tried using the email analogy, but it's more challenging now since most people are on Gmail.

Therefore, the idea of following people from another platform will require a lengthy teaching process.

As I've said: There are people who have fled from Twitter to Mastodon immediately after Musk has bought Twitter, and who still don't understand that they can follow non-Mastodon actors from Mastodon. After two years.

It's almost cute to see how they've created a Pixelfed account. And they try to follow their own Pixelfed from Mastodon. And they succeed. And their minds are blown.

It gets even better when they join Friendica to keep in touch with their Facebook friends who escape to Friendica, too. And they try to follow their own Friendica account from Mastodon. And it works. And they follow themselves back. And they wonder, if they can follow Mastodon accounts from Friendica, whether it's worth keeping accounts on both Mastodon and Friendica in the first place.

This, by the way, is when they've really arrived in the Fediverse.

By the way: If they already follow several hundred Fediverse actors, it's interesting to go through their follow list. Some who can't imagine that you can only follow Mastodon accounts from Mastodon already follow a handful accounts all over the place from Pleroma to Misskey to even Mbin without even knowing.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Friendica

2025-02-05 16:57:11

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Lucas Janin ?? ?? There's nothing even close to a Fediverse-wide user search by name.

That is, Fediverse newbies normally land on fairly large and well-known instances. Chances are that they make themselves known on other big instances fairly quickly. So you could try the search on your instance, the directory (unless you're on Hubzilla which doesn't list ActivityPub-based accounts in its directory, only Nomad-based channels) or good old mention auto-complete.

Ideally, however, those who leave a commercial silo should tell their acquaintances where they go. It isn't wise to first delete your Facebook account, then join Friendica and then wait for your old Facebook friends to find you. Also, ideally, they should have more than way of communicating with their more important acquaintances.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse