One of my gripes with the current hype around Mastodon is that the discussion around social-media alternatives focusses mostly on Mastodon, presumably because it’s that resembles Twitter the most.

But as Bastian Allgeier points out that Mastodon is just one part of a puzzle. Using IndieWeb protocols, other platforms, even websites, can exchange data with Mastodon and between each other.

There’s a lot of wisdom in being careful after all we’ve seen happening to Twitter in the past weeks. There’s even more than enough reason to be cynical about any future form of social media. Mastodon is being praised a lot right now and it will most definitely not be a magic healing potion for all our social problems.

But Mastodon is not a platform. Mastodon is just a tiny part of a concept many have been dreaming about and working on for years. Social media started on the wrong foot. The idea for the read/write web has always been different. Our digital identities weren’t supposed to end up in something like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram.

Decentralisation, Federation, The Indie Web: There were many groups silently working on solving the broken architecture of our digital social networks and communication channels – long, long before the “web 3” dudes tried to reframe it as their genius new idea.