I’ve found that most people understand that signing up for an email service like Gmail allows them to communicate with people who aren’t on Gmail. Tie that in to explaining federation.
“Mastodon is kind of the same idea, but for social media.”
Obviously the technical details are different, but it helps explain federation at a very high level. Then you can talk about why that’s valuable for longevity of a system.
Example: the decline of Yahoo and AOL as email providers didn’t end email as a technology because email doesn’t depend on those companies existing to function.
I’ve found that most people understand that signing up for an email service like Gmail allows them to communicate with people who aren’t on Gmail. Tie that in to explaining federation.
“Mastodon is kind of the same idea, but for social media.”
Obviously the technical details are different, but it helps explain federation at a very high level. Then you can talk about why that’s valuable for longevity of a system.
Example: the decline of Yahoo and AOL as email providers didn’t end email as a technology because email doesn’t depend on those companies existing to function.