With the shift from silos to federation for our core social infrastructure we need to rethink the values embedded in the technology we use. The first one to look at is scaling, the whole technical stack/ programing thinking is currently based on this value if you want a definition of a #dotcons, it’s this, it scales to dominate and control the market. With federation the server software not scaling is a needed feature to spread the nodes as widely and richly as possible. Yes the network itself needs to scale, but the individual nodes in the network not scaling is an essential feature not a problem to be overcome. This is counter intuitive to most of our current geek thinking.
A federated network is first a community and secondly a software network designed to nurture this community. If the software dominates and controls the social you break the federation and end up in the place you are trying to leave a silo.
Not scaling is a feature not a problem in federated networks.