I agree with Moxie&#x27;s assertion: federated services are losing. As it stands they can&#x27;t keep up with the rate of change and iteration currently offered by centralized protocols.<p>But rather than this being a problem with federation itself, perhaps it&#x27;s an issue with existing implementations. Things like XMPP give protocols so much flexibility with extensions that upgrades become costly and difficult to implement. Others, like HTTP, SMTP, and IRC are updated very slowly.<p>It seems like it should be possible to implement federated protocols that are focussed on fast iterations. For example, a protocol could specify that each version has a fixed lifetime of just one month, and require all clients and servers update to the new release in the last week of that month. Such a fast-paced protocol would have some disadvantages over slower ones (e.g. longevity), but it seems better suited to the pace of modern software and service development.<p>But I&#x27;ve never developed a protocol, let alone a federated one. I&#x27;d love to hear some potential problems or examples of failed protocols that have taken this kind of approach.