I wish there was an app more like MySpace or early Facebook [1]. You have your own page that you carefully curate, list your hobbies and favorite bands and whatever, and you can connect with friends and browse their pages and maybe leave a message there. I think this other model would also get around the problem of network effects - a landing page or personal homepage works even if you don't have connections yet.
--
[1] Or, if you went to university in Germany in the 2000s, the learning platform Stud.IP. My classmates and I spent countless hours in the forums, decorating our user pages, and chatting. And it was heavily gamified, you got XP for every action and we were all trying to level up. I still think of this as close to an ideal "social network" app.
Does anyone know what the usual post limit is on the popular Pleroma instances? I was thinking of migrating to a static blog with Hugo or Nanoc, but I really like a federated presence like this: https://pleroma.paritybit.ca/jbauer
Edith Reisen wrote a good Pleroma overview: https://edith.reisen/computers/misc/pleroma.html
The project consists of several components: Pleroma is the server implementation, and comes bundled with PleromaFE, the default frontend. Other useful utilities are also provided, such as an ActivityPub relay.”
* I would really like to install PleromaFE and use it *
But your download links are broken ... come on
