For those on traditional social media, I just say "What if Facebook and Twitter and YouTube could all talk to each other? People on Facebook could follow people on Twitter and people on Twitter can follow people on Facebook." Then they usually reply "that would be neat" and then I tell them "yeah, that's what we are building over here in the fediverse."
It usually is easier to give them an analogy related to something they are familiar with.
To create something like this, you would need to federate two components, and optionally a third.
You would also need to create a standard (a protocol) for the app store to talk to the websites hosting the applications.
Application Hosting: Basically, everyone can create their own website with their own apps. That part would be unmoderated, similar to how you can go to a software publisher's website today and download a Windows program. They publish their application and data about their apps in a machine readable way where an app store could take that data and create a listing.
The App Store: There would be open source app store code that allows people to run their own app store. The people operating an app store decide what gets listed in the app store. Some app stores will be for a particular niche while some will attempt to list everything. For example, you might have app stores that only have open source software. This would still make the app store operator the gatekeeper, but what is different here is that anyone could use the same software and set up their own app store.
Curation Groups: This allows people or groups to create their own curated list of approved apps. This provides the app stores a shortcut so they don't have to review every single app themselves. This would allow individuals, communities, associations, and even businesses to create moderated lists of apps they reviewed and believe should be listed in app stores. Mastodon could publish a curated list of Mastodon Apps they recommend. Open source organizations could create a curated list of apps they recommend. The app stores could consume such lists.
People can then choose the app store and the apps they trust. App stores can choose the curated lists they trust.
This is similar to how podcasting platforms work, where a podcaster publishes their audio files and an RSS feed with information about their Podcast, and various Podcast Directories list their podcast. Or similar to how platforms like Steam work, where they list games, many of which can be obtained on the game author's website as well. The key point being that the authors of the apps can get listed in multiple app stores.
Optionally, both the Application Hosting software and App Store can be integrated with protocols like ActivityPub, AT Protocol, or Nomad/Zot protocol for the purpose of sending out notifications to followers who may be interested in updates and news about the apps or the app store. At the very least, it should list an existing fediverse handle where people can follow them.
So, yes, it can be federated.
To be safe and secure, you would want multiple organizations with resources to run competing app stores using this software and protocol. These organizations can be non-profits, cooperatives, or even small businesses. The reason why is because an organization is more likely to have the resources to moderate the list of apps in their App Store, whereas an individual most likely would not, unless that was their full time job.
Whereas anyone who created an app could run their own website with information about their app, and then request to be listed in various app stores and curated lists.
I think this a great idea!
Why is it so expensive to federate Bluesky?
Mostly because it depends on certain centralized services. You can create your own apps and even host your own content, but the discovery and distribution system has a copy of every post so that it is easy to access by everyone. The positive side is that you don't have to worry about missing replies in the conversation since their centralized database has a copy of it. The downside is that hosting such a massive database is expensive.
You also have to consider that some servers are very politically-oriented, and if your political beliefs are not aligned with the administrator or community, then you are likely to get banned or if not banned, made to feel unwelcome. This applies to the left, right, up, or down on the Nolan chart. It is their right to do so, since it is their server, but the result is usually echo chambers that repeat the same talking points. If you like to debate policy, then these are not the communities for you.
If you want to discuss different points of view, you need to find a community that actually wants to debate the issues. Or run your own server and find like-minded friends to talk with.
We never know what the future holds. But one of our goals is to decentralize social media. If we wind up with only a few major players, we have failed in that goal.
A marketplace of apps is actually a good thing. Not everyone wants something based on Twitter (i.e. Mastodon, and similar). Not everyone wants Reddit (Lemmy, Mbin, etc.). Not everyone wants a traditional forum (NodeBB). Not everyone wants a blog (WordPress, Hubzilla, etc.). Not everyone wants Facebook (Friendica, Hubzilla, etc.).
One of the goals is to build increased compatibility between apps so that you can choose which experience you want, yet can still talk to anyone else on the fediverse. Some big players will certainly emerge, but I think that there will always be hundreds of compatible apps.
@pelespirit Because Lemmy is federated, your upvotes and downvotes are also sent to different platforms, which may display them.
And you also have to consider how other platforms treat upvotes and downvotes.
On many platforms, your upvotes and downvotes are not only visible, but sometimes result in a notification alert (i.e. someone commented on your post, someone liked your post, someone downvoted your post, etc.). It is not anonymous at all.
They still have control over their data. If implemented properly, it just changes where there post is created since the post is synced back to their own server to their own account. Regardless of where it was created, it would still be visible on that server since it is a reply to that post.
For some reason, links from a Lemmy top-level post do not show up in Hubzilla. Here is the link for anyone who does not see the link.
#^https://forum.wedistribute.org/topic/9/we-distribute-is-always-looking-for-help
True. But when talking to someone who lives on traditional social media, it is an explanation they would understand. Sometimes you have to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be.