I've been thinking about the "federation is like e-mail" metaphor, when explaining the fediverse to non-techs, and while this comparison is technically precise, I was wondering if it's closer to UX to say "federation is like podcast" (ie. like RSS).
I have no in-depth knowledge of podcasts, but I think a lot of people will be familiar with either subscribing through a podcast client (copy/paste URL in Overcast, Rhythmbox, etc.) or going to a separate server with "federated" content (listen on spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.).
The copy/paste problem in the fediverse is just like with podcast clients. Yet I don't think listeners are surprised to go to a podcast's website and see several buttons that does the same thing (in fediverse terms: "Follow on Mastodon", "Follow on Calckey", "Subscribe through handle").
So could this metaphor and an imitation of this convention actually help to articulate the plurality of apps in the fediverse, rather than just leaving them with a handle?
#fedidev #fediverse #federation #ux
/EN (@kzxpr@todon.eu)
@hexorg I can see that Wikipedia categorizes #RSS and #Atom as "web syndication". I'm not familiar with the concept, but maybe it's a general question of #federation vs #syndication ?