I think I have identified a fairly significant flaw in how the #Fediverse currently operates. Hear me out.
The Fediverse currently consists of all sorts of different systems - #Mastodon, #Friendica , #Pixelfed , #PeerTube, #BookWyrm , and so forth. And while they are all connected via the #ActivityPub protocol, they all have different functionalities and different ways of presenting themselves. Which is as it should be, because Diversity Is Our Strength(TM).
However, it is here that the ActivityPub-based interactivity hits its limits - for usually, you can either experience the relevant system as it was intended, or you can interact with it, but not both - _unless_ you have an account on the same system (though not necessarily on the same instance).
Let's say that you are a Mastodon user who looks at another person's BookWyrm page. You scroll through their books, posts, and comments. Then you see some comment you want to comment on yourself, but can you do so?
Not directly. You need to figure out the URL of their comment, and then copy and paste that comment into the search bar of your Mastodon instance. Then it will show up in the same format as a Mastodon post, and you can interact with it - boost it, like it, comment on it.
Sure, it works, but it's a whole lot of tedious effort.
Or you can search for the user account in Mastodon and scroll through all their posts and comments as if they were a Mastodon user - and thus, you will miss out on all the unique user interface features of BookWyrm.
So what is missing?
Well, Mastodon already has an "Open original page" feature when looking at someone's post. What we need is an "Open original page AND AUTHENTICATE" feature. This way, the target instance (whatever software they are using) could acknowledge the viewer as an external user who could nevertheless fully interact with the local user interface, including the ability to boost, like, and make comments.
This is something that should be theoretically possible to implement, right? #FediHelp
