I&#x27;m largely sympathetic to Moxie&#x27;s core arguments, and to the extent that I disagree, it&#x27;s his prerogative to do what he thinks is best with his project.<p>I will point out that some people are using &quot;federated&quot; and &quot;decentralized&quot; as synonyms, when they are distinct concepts. The Tor network, for example, is decentralized, but not federated. You can run your own Tor node, but that node has to be accepted by the directory authorities in order to become a part of the network. You could conceivably set up your own Tor network, with your own directory authorities, but of course you can also create your own alternative network with Signal, since both the client and server code are free software.<p>Ricochet, the messenger that uses client-side Tor hidden services to create server-less chat, is also decentralized, but not federated. Ricochet clients talk to other Ricochet clients. There is not IETF RFC out there for Tor or Ricochet, that you can use to build your own implementation and federate into the network.<p>Moxie&#x27;s claim that federation inevitably leads to moribund cruft may be over-stated; after all, http is not exactly in trouble. Nevertheless, I think that it&#x27;s probably true that maintaining a federated protocol that is also an easy, seamless, user-facing piece of software is most likely a tall order.