Discuit just went open source, could federation be next? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by spaduf@slrpnk.net to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Announcement post here: https://discuit.substack.com/p/df5f002f-e27a-46a6-b30d-7641b266bd65

For those unfamiliar, Discuit is another Reddit alternative that's been floating around for a while. I was unable to find a MAU count, but I am honestly more interested in their software than their communities. Particularly curious what you all think of this stack. A consistent complaint around Lemmy is that a Rust backend makes contribution difficult, will a Go backend contribute to a lower overall barrier of entry?

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[-] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 33 points 9 months ago

Doesn't really matter if they open sourced, since many reddit alternative over the years have been open source: Voat, Ruqqus, Raddle, doesn't really make.a difference since they all failed one way or another. They either never hit that critical self sustaining mass of users, or they attracted the exact wrong type of users who drove out any reasonable users there.

Federation seems to be the only way to create that critical mass of users, and Lemmy is the only alternative that really succeeded (kbin is kinda...hanging on for dear life for various reasons but is alive only due to federation) precisely because it is not a website, but a platform inside of a greater ecosystem.

All Discuit really have is a pretty UI, as it is nowhere even near feature parity with a current defederated Lemmy instance, and Lemmy also has like a dozen different desktop and mobile UIs already.

[-] kpw@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

I'm on kbin. What's wrong with it?

[-] ernest@kbin.social 9 points 9 months ago

In the latest thing with Reddit's /kbin, it was still in the early prototype phase (and remains so to this day). Prior to this, practically only I and a few friends were using it. It wasn't ready to handle the sudden creation of dozens of instances or accommodate thousands of users. Additionally, real-world issues emerged that demanded my immediate attention. I made the decision to take a step back instead of getting caught up in a race, opting to build solid foundations, which is exactly what I'm doing now. In my opinion, this will be better for the project and potential contributors, ensuring that their work will be utilized to the best possible extent.