So where is the open source Twitter alternative?
[1]: https://mastodon.social [2]: https://github.com/Gargron/mastodon
Disclaimer: I'm the developer
That method works fine for many different tools. But with social apps you need to be able to federate, which means you need to have a proprietary vendor who wants to help, which isn't going to happen.
I'm hoping Matrix will provide the bridging required to be able to send notifications from Diaspora to Twitter (for example). I will always be a hack though. :/
We, hackers, think that everything is so sexy with P2P, federation and decentralization in general, but I don't think 'normal' people share that sentiment.
People love brands, they're surrounded by them, and they feel loyalty towards them. If there's no company behind something, it just won't feel right. You won't feel that push towards a thing. The reason why people use Snapchat isn't just because it's a good tool, it's also because it's cool.
I just don't see how something like GNU Social will ever become cool, if there isn't some timely and powerful brand to push it.
The thing is also that we don't have any clear incentives to use P2P-services right now, because the silos aren't posing any clear threats to us as individuals. If we see something like a major data breach, or something like a "Snowden for social networks" that change the way we relate to these behemoths, we might just see users getting ready to give them up.