When decentralization can get too big!
One of the main positives of the Fediverse is its ability to be decentralised. In simple terms this means anyone can setup a server and participate with the Fediverse, using the ActivityPub protocols. This new server has the ability to communicate freely, or more restricted if the admin decides to defederate (ban) some servers.
Being decentralised means that if one server goes down (or many servers), it does not pull down the entire Fediverse -- which continues to operate without interruption; queuing messages for the dead server until it returns.
Not everyone shares this vision, and they seem focused on growing their numbers and delivering bigger and larger servers. It's a numbers game. There's no harm in a server only having a hundred users; what's the point of thousands on one server?
Let's not forget that most Fediverse servers are run by donations from users, but usually highly subsidised by the admin team themselves. Their hobby project can quickly get out of hand, with large monthly running costs.
Examples of over-growth are all over the Fediverse. Let's take an example which has been brewing recently for a drama.
fosstodon
According to fedidb.org 1, Fosstodon currently has 62k+ registered users; 9k active users; 4m+ posts. The twelfth largest Fediverse server by monthly active users.
Those are impressive numbers, but are they too much?
The infrastructure and costs to maintain this will be significant. According to their own page 2, it's $2k per month.
Their support pages 3 also notes:
We keep 6 months of funding in our account to keep the lights on at Fosstodon
It's assumed they have healthy donations, but there is no detail on their site.
So what has went wrong?
Simple -- they are too big.
Trying to summarise the last few days:
- one moderator on the server shared opinions which were not necessarily conducive to the views of the guiding principles of the team (or most of the fediverse). He has now left as a moderator and his account is deleted.
- chit-chat continues around the stability of fosstodon.
- Mike and Kev, who appear to be the founders of fosstodon have issued statements to say they are moving on and leaving fostodon. Mike is quite clear he is "Done. Enough is enough" 4. Kev is "done with the drama". 5
- Gina, a previous moderator, is admirably stepping up 6 and taking on a renewed role as moderator/admin
Kev's post seems to suggest he has been financing some of the costs of fosstodon -- that is an untenable situation, given the sheer size and number of people on the server.
Mike suggested that they are not looking for extra mods beyond Gina, as they have a team already. Gina, on the other hand says "more help is always welcome"
In Summary
There is NO need for a server to grow so huge. The team should have closed registration a long time ago -- they apparently tried to in the past, by changing sign-ups to invitation only, but that didn't help.
The very point of the Fediverse is to reduce the reliance on large servers -- single points of failure; huge drains on finances.
I wish the team well in their future, especially Kev and Mike who are clearly at a low point in their fediverse journey.
Let's try and keep server size under control!
Feel free to comment or reply on the fediverse.
