Random thoughts …

If ActivityPub makes it into being a big deal in the future, I’d suspect some new stage of growth or development would be necessary. Either something gets added to the protocol or the architecture of the fediverse develops into a more sophisticated set of interacting services or the software ecosystem actually matures into an ecosystem. Without any of that I’d predict it stays relatively niche.

Should a decentralised protocol actually make it big, it could be game changing. But my “shot from the hip” bet right now is that ActivityPub and the current fediverse ecosystem is not it.

Apart from that, I’m actually thinking nothing terribly dramatic happens. There’ll be some fracturing, but in the big picture it will remain relatively fringe with the core platforms remaining mostly in tact with large user bases.

If there’s any real tectonic shift, I’d say that the 2010s idea of social media is on its way out (which is part of the reason why I’m not betting on the fedi going mainstream, as it’s mostly stuck in the past). I think a big divide breaking now and into the short term future is that between private “true community” interactions such as in private group chats or on discord etc and public high-utility or high-entertainment content such as youtube, tiktok, wikis and maybe twitter going forward. Private chats will be where you have your network and the public domain will be where you extract value, with AI/algorithmic assistance playing an increasing role, or attempt to become a creator. Another reason why I’d bet against the fedi is that it tries to walk what I suspect is an awkward middle ground between private and public spaces without actually providing either.

How the great AI-ification affects things, I’m not sure. I’d bet it basically pushes social media into a winter of sorts, with the platforms that exist becoming more closed off (see Reddit API stuff) and the value of genuine human-only spaces going up (see private + public comments above).

Amongst all of that, I’d suspect that the platforms themselves won’t really matter as much any more. You’ll get whatever you’re looking for wherever it’s available from which ever service or creator is providing it, but it won’t be a pleasant experience getting it and you’ll feel generally bitter and frustrated by the experience. Meanwhile, you’ll have whatever app(s) you need to stay in contact with those that actually matter to you, which again will depend on who’s using what, not what you chose to use. Otherwise, everyone and everything you interact with will just be an ephemeral and confusing and increasingly detached internet blip.

The metaverse is supposed to take off eventually as young kids start using it.

How would monetisation work on a decentralized platform? Would the creator be limited with merchandise and promotions without ads?

We went over a related business case in my MBA just yesterday. You can look at what Adidas did: they partnered with the Bored Yacht Ape Club to produce NFTs that ended up selling for $22 million. That marketing strategy hinges on working with recognizable folks that are already established within decentralized areas. And that’s what it’s probably going to be about, at least at first: building relationships rather than direct monetization. It’ll actually be really nice, probably.

Except that’s how all internet platforms start. Then it’ll be enshittified. You know what enshittification is…but if you don’t:

it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

So, I predict over the next 5/10 years, as the metaverse gets set up and whatnot, social media might become slightly less shitty for some time in there if you’re willing to engage on these decentralized metaverse platforms. Because you know damn well that Reddit and TikTok are going become thoroughly eshittified until all the value is extracted from them, and users will have to look for alternatives.

One thing to consider is AI is going to make getting set up and using things like activitypub much easier - especially as it’ll be making it much easier for Devs and users to customise tools to basically break out of the social media boxes, your ai will be checking your social media accounts on a range of platforms and keeping upto date with where creators you like are posting so it’ll show you interesting stuff no matter what platform it comes from.

I think by being the most open and flexible we’ll see a lot of growth and development here