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Last time I looked it was half baked and not easy to use, has it changed in recent years or months and can it be considered practical in a way that let's say Matrix is?

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Some updates:

Oasis is a new frontend (alternative to the Patchwork desktop app): https://github.com/fraction/oasis/

Manyverse continues development, including working on low-level database improvements, and gossip "rooms": https://www.manyver.se/blog/2021-01-update

Planetary (iOS app) approaches public launch: https://planetary.social/ https://viewer.scuttlebot.io/%25kXEXGmyNyo%2BuKkcySMwghVKpvR...

Manyverse’s work on room servers version 2 will be huge.

The rooms will function a lot more like real life buildings. Some will be private like homes, some will be public like libraries, others will be restricted like a club.

Really cool development!

I don't see how these apps dont eventually get taken down like the Fediverse apps earlier this year. Eventually (probably once it's polished enough to be usable) the deplatformed communities will discover SSB and then Google/Apple will take the apps down.

It also spun up my laptops fans for minutes when syncing, I don’t know if thats still an issue. Cool project though and there are some interesting people involved and contributing.

That's like running a blockchain on your laptop - it first has to get the entire (in some cases, relevant) history so that it can act as a peer.

Yes, the initial syncing and indexing can take a moment. I would recommend joining a single Pub or SSB room [1] to find people and grow your network organically. The large Pubs [2] have a lot of content to download and also follow bots (which you would have to block).

[1] https://github.com/staltz/ssb-room/blob/master/FAQ.md [2] https://github.com/ssbc/ssb-server/wiki/Pub-Servers

Every time I try it, it reminds me of Matrix. So near, yet so far.

I have similar questions too. It seemed as if it was tied to a single device and transferring information from one to another also seemed cumbersome.

Yes[0]. AFAIK fully transferring an identity from one device to the next should not be a problem. The problem is more that updating the feed from multiple devices would create diverging feeds.

[0]: https://github.com/ssbc/handbook.scuttlebutt.nz/blob/master/...

It's common for one person to have multiple feeds/identities, so this is less of a problem than you might expect.

There's no structured way to indicate that 2 feeds are the same person (aka #sameAs), but you can easily link to the other feed and just say “this is also me” (because your audience is a bunch of humans that mostly pass the Turing test).

Because of this, we get the bonus feature that you can easily follow a different set of feeds on different devices — e.g. perhaps on your phone you want feeds you're less likely to reply to, because you prefer typing on a physical keyboard.

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