@aschrijver , following on our post exchange in ActivityPub Support: Phase 1 RFC - #50 by Mevo and also trying to take things here (this is a more appropriated topic):
There is one thing I found pretty interesting lately: Some folks created a free and decentralized marketplace called Openbazaar. The idea was basically to have something totally open and where anybody could put anything for sale, without any possibility of restriction or censorship. It’s based on cryptocurrencies for payment, and there is a possibility to review sellers and a system of moderators to eventually arbitrate transactions which may go wrong/have a problem. NO FEES on transactions whatsoever, the thing is 100% free (there would be a small fee for the moderator needing to intervene if that may be the case).
I mean, on paper, this thing is fantastic, IMHO. Yet, it never really took off. On the other hand, Ebay or Amazon, which take quite some fees on every single transaction, run very well.
The point is that having someone who controls something, who has an incentive to make it work because they profit financially from it, and who will invest towards this goal, usually make it work better than free, open and noble ideas. It may be very sad, but in practice, this is what seems to happen in real life.
Did Mastodon take over Facebook and Twitter? Will it ever? Users don’t seem to be fed up with the amount of ads they eat on facebook.
Anyway, it appears to me you didn’t take in consideration that aspect in your view about federation. So, here it is for you to maybe consider (or at least know about it). It doesn’t mean having the option to federate things, or enter partnerships, isn’t a good idea. But going “full federation” may also remove the appeal of running a software, which only becomes a “node” and isn’t something you control anymore. It’s quite different, at least.