> There are no instances, only peers. (Pubs are sort of easy to connect to peers and there is work being done on peer discovery to outdate most pubs; they could still be used to connect communits around topics, hobbies, etc as a way to reduce the distance between peers)
Why do you draw this distinction between "instances" and "peers"? A conventional understanding of the word "instance" would suggest it means "a running instance of the software system in question", which would suggest the word has no meaning distinct from what "peer" would mean in this context. Am I missing a critical and non-obvious distinction?
> There is no retweeting/sharing
My experience is that users really like these features.
> Why do you draw this distinction between "instances" and "peers"
I understand why you ask this, but the word "instance" has come to mean the server running something like MediaGoblin or Mastodon (the server in a server/client model), while a "peer" is an end-user device running a P2P app like BitTorrent or ScuttleButt (that is both client and server). P2P networks have their cons, but the major pro for a network not backed by large wads of capital is that they scale as they add users. Server-to-server federated networks using OStatus, Diaspora protocol, Zot, or ActivityPub have to scale by convincing people with scarce sysadmin skills to set up more servers, and figure out how to sustain them (both organizationally and financially).
> My experience is that users really like [retweeting/sharing] features.
Sure, but that doesn't mean every piece of network software needs to have them. They are one of the key tools for abusing The Stacks; post something you want to trend (spam, fake news), get a botnet of zombie users to boost it. Given the way Scuttlebutt transports and stores posts, they would create a lot of extra overhead, and potential for abuse, for no major benefit (people can always cut'n'paste if they really want to reshare).
Why do you draw this distinction between "instances" and "peers"? A conventional understanding of the word "instance" would suggest it means "a running instance of the software system in question", which would suggest the word has no meaning distinct from what "peer" would mean in this context. Am I missing a critical and non-obvious distinction?
> There is no retweeting/sharing
My experience is that users really like these features.