It is kind of a bummer that the votes themselves aren't federated yet, even if the content is. The whole point of federation is that you should self host your own so that you have ownership over the computing that powers your social media experience, which is the only way are going to move forward with it really. Otherwise, you are just depending on the good will of someone else, usually a corporation that needs to make money at somepoint. It's not like investment or venture capital is actually delivering any value for the users of these services.
Ideally, there will be more of a P2P structure for social media if everything moves forward. It doesn't solve for the problem where large companies can solve for doing the really large aggregation and drive engagement algorithmically. But even if 3-4 aggregators that are independent from each other emerge plus there being a relatively low barrier of entry to create your own, I think it could be sustainable and a major win. Privately funded social spaces are dying a quick death in the age of high interest rates.
If I see a post with 10 upvotes (let's ignore downvotes for now), did 10 people from my instance upvote, or did 10 people from the instance where the content was originally posted upvote?
Ideally, there will be more of a P2P structure for social media if everything moves forward. It doesn't solve for the problem where large companies can solve for doing the really large aggregation and drive engagement algorithmically. But even if 3-4 aggregators that are independent from each other emerge plus there being a relatively low barrier of entry to create your own, I think it could be sustainable and a major win. Privately funded social spaces are dying a quick death in the age of high interest rates.