Memorial to "rif is fun for Reddit" Android app, aka "reddit is fun", shut down after June 30, 2023
Second option is difficult because there are too many instances. It is difficult to make good use of the funds as the popular instances will eventually enjoy too much profit whilst the smaller instances will be forced to shutdown due to lack of funds. This will lessen the decentralisation overtime.
The solution is a central service, something like Lemmy Fund Management or something, which regulates the funds accordingly. The managers will be selected by voting system (democracy).
But then the centralised service becomes a single point of failure. If you attack that one service, all instances lose their funding.
I can see that being an issue and a flaw. I think if everybody focuses on a solution, we can surely do something about it.
also don't block other instances too much! I mean as long as they are bot servers that threaten the health of the network, then you have to get rid of them of course. but way too many people are getting their panties in a bunch about content they don't like, and immediately resort to the nuclear option of defederation, which is actually hurting the network and effectively splitting the user base. all these things should be blocked on a user level (by blocking specific communities, not whole instances!).
There are unfortunately not enough people that hold this opinion, too many are trigger happy on defederating from those they don't like.
Like you say, there can be some legitimate reasons, such as bot servers, and I would add if a big company created an instance to take it over and kill the federation.
But too many simply do it because they disagree with what the people in an instance are saying, and that hurts the federated nature of the fediverse.
I’m having trouble seeing the purpose of the federation system if not to cater what people see, to one degree or another. After seeing soft nazi rhetoric spread through years worth of complacency, the argument of “don’t get too banhappy, fellas, all ideas are worth considering” really doesn’t strike me as wise.
When there's an instance that doesn't want to play well with others, it's up to others to take action.
Generally, I agree, but sometimes it's going to happen. See also the great IRC split, and countless other networks prior that mostly no longer exist.
Unsure how distributed federated services prevents the reddit downfall, aside from corporate greed. Which can also be solved through legally binding agreements/foundation-controlled companies. Among many other solutions.
It's all a tradeoff. To tradeoff corporate greed you now have community fragmentation and fragility risks as any instance can be taken down whenever, and any unhappy user that created communities can solely kill them off (As stated by some users threatening to do so in another thread)
#2 sounds good to say, but barely works in practice when you're talking about infrastructure costs in the tens of millions of $ per year for something at scale...
Essentially saying nice things that don't effectively translate into reality doesn't solve problems. It just perpetuates a lack of critical thinking.