Counterfoil

Received into the cataloguecounterfoilSigned by D. Knauss

The fediverse

Provisional review Last reviewed

Not fully scored yet. This may change. How we evaluate tools

In the convivial range. Of the six balances: 2 tipping, 3 holding, 1 not assessed. Position somewhere between 57 and 80 of 100. The balances not assessed could put it past the second watershed.

  • Biological degradation Not assessed Does this tool damage the living world, or the body, faster than either can recover? Not assessed: nobody has looked at this yet, so it is not counted as holding.
  • Radical monopoly Holding Can people still meet the need another way, without this tool? Holding: the tool does not cause this problem.
  • Overprogramming Holding Does using this tool require training or certification that people cannot give each other? Holding: the tool does not cause this problem.
  • Polarization Tipping Does this tool move power or advantage to a few, at others’ cost? Tipping: the tool has begun to cause this problem, without going past the limit.
  • Obsolescence Holding Does this tool force people to replace what still works? Holding: the tool does not cause this problem.
  • Frustration Tipping Does this tool give back less than it takes, counting everything it takes? Tipping: the tool has begun to cause this problem, without going past the limit.

What it does

Lets people on thousands of separately run servers follow and reply to each other, using a shared open protocol. Posts arrive in the order they were written; no company ranks them.

Where it stops

At the server. Each server sets its own rules and chooses which others it will talk to, and no one owns the network. It drifts toward its second watershed if a few large servers become the place everyone must be, or if one company’s service comes to supply most of the traffic.

How easily you can stop using it

Easier than leaving a platform, with a catch. You can move to another server and your followers move with you, but your posts stay behind. The software is free, so anyone can run a server.

What is scored

  • The unit: The network of separately run servers that speak the ActivityPub protocol, with Mastodon as its best-known program. Left out: Bluesky and the AT Protocol, which are discussed only for comparison, and large companies’ services that connect to it.
  • The job it is tested against: Letting people on different servers follow and reply to each other. It does this reliably for people who get past choosing a server, which is where some give up.
  • Where and when: 2018 to 2026. Five of the six balances are assessed.

This record is ours, not Illich’s. The fediverse is a network of separately run servers whose users can follow and reply to one another, because the servers speak a shared open protocol called ActivityPub. Mastodon is the best-known program that uses it. It is the third record in the Feeds system: the algorithmic social feed is closed and ranked, Current is open but only reads, and the fediverse is open and two-way.

A network like the telephone

Illich called the telephone structurally convivial because the company ran the lines but had no say in what people said (see The telephone). The fediverse is built the same way. Each server carries its members’ posts to the others, and no server decides what the rest of the network sees. Posts arrive in the order they were written. Nothing is ranked for attention.

ActivityPub has been a World Wide Web Consortium standard since January 2018, so no company owns it, and different programs can use it for different jobs: short posts, photographs, video, link sharing.

Who runs it

Anyone can run a server, because the software is free. In practice most people join a server someone else runs, usually a volunteer or a small organization, and that person sets the rules, moderates, and pays the bills. Mastodon, the largest program, moved its trademark and assets to a non-profit in November 2025, when its founder stepped down as chief executive.

The weak point is the server. Mozilla closed its Mastodon server in December 2024, and botsin.space, a server for automated accounts, went read-only the same month. Their members had to move or lose their accounts. Moving takes your followers and your settings with you. It does not take your posts.

How much it is used

By one 2026 summary of FediDB’s counts, the fediverse has about 12 million registered accounts and about 2 million people active in a month. That is small beside the platforms. Meta’s Threads now lets its members share their posts to the fediverse, in more than 100 countries, which connects the network to a service many times its size.

ActivityPub and the AT Protocol

The fediverse’s main rival as an open network is Bluesky, which runs on a different protocol, the AT Protocol. Each side says the other is less open than it looks, and both have a point.

The case against Bluesky was put in 2024 by Christine Lemmer-Webber, one of ActivityPub’s authors. She argued that Bluesky is neither decentralized nor federated in practice. Its design expects each major service to hold a copy of the whole network, which is costly, so nearly everything still runs through one company. Bryan Newbold, a Bluesky engineer, replied that the protocol is built so that people can leave the company without losing anything, and that this is the openness that matters.

That is the real difference. ActivityPub is open in who runs it. It has been a public standard since 2018, no company controls it, and thousands of servers are in different hands. But an account belongs to its server, and posts do not move. The AT Protocol is open in what you can take with you: an account, its posts, and its followers are designed to move between providers. But most of its working parts are still run by Bluesky, and it only entered a standards body in 2026, when the Internet Engineering Task Force formed a working group for it.

By this catalogue’s tests, ActivityPub is the more open of the two today, because control is already spread out. The AT Protocol has the better answer, on paper, to how easily you can leave. Whether it becomes as open in practice depends on other organizations coming to run its core services.

The six balances

Scored as set out in How to evaluate tools. The fediverse reliably does its job, so it starts in the convivial range.

  • Biological degradation: Not assessed.
  • Radical monopoly: 0. Nobody has to be on it, and it is one of several ways to publish, beside feeds and plain websites.
  • Overprogramming: 0. Using it needs no training beyond choosing a server.
  • Polarization: 1. Power sits with whoever runs your server. They can suspend an account, cut off other servers, or close. How large a share of active members the biggest servers hold is not yet measured here.
  • Obsolescence: 0. The protocol has been a public standard since 2018, and many programs speak it.
  • Frustration: 1. Moving servers keeps your followers but not your posts, and a server can close with little notice.

Where the threshold falls

In the convivial range, at 57: two of the six balances are tipping, so its position is 50 + 7. The structure is convivial in the way Illich’s telephone was. They tip because people depend on one server and the person who runs it.

Two things could move it. If a few very large servers become the place everyone has to be, polarization goes up. And if a company the size of Meta comes to supply most of the traffic, the network could keep its open protocol and still lose its independence.

Open questions

  • What share of active members do the largest servers hold? Cite FediDB directly, and replace the second-hand figures above.
  • What has Threads’ sharing changed in practice: how much fediverse traffic now comes from it, and how have servers responded?
  • How much unpaid work does moderation take, and who does it?
  • Should Mastodon, or a single server, be catalogued as a separate tool from the protocol?
  • Assess biological degradation: the energy cost of thousands of small servers against a few very large ones.
  • Catalogue Bluesky and the AT Protocol as a separate record, and score the two side by side.

Sources

Review history

  1. First scored at 43. Biological degradation is not yet assessed.
  2. Moved from 43 to 57 when the method changed: a tool with every balance holding now sits at 50, the centre of the convivial range. The scores did not change.
  3. Added “What is scored”: the unit, the job it is tested against, and where and when.

Record last updated

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