The whole idea of BlueSky supporting nomadic identities but the rest of the ActivityPub (plus other stuff) Fediverse being unable to do so is such an oversold idea.
A new service using ActivityPub behind the scenes (and not the AT Protocol) can absolutely support nomadic identities, even if the service doesn't treat a whole website as the actor.
It will still use did:plc, same as AT Protocol (BlueSky), but once done so, an application that understands how to work with did:plc can dereference an actor based on the DID.
That said, an existing service will simply not be compatible with this idea, without changing how it operates.
Beginners question: is nomadic identity the ability to have one identity and use it across multiple fediverse tools? (Pixelfed / Mastodon / Lemmy / Peertube / etc.)
Did some reading and that's what it sounded like, and that only Hubzilla supported it?
Nomadic identity is the idea that your account is not tied to a single server, but instead can move from server to server, but your profile will still be identified by the same identifier, regardless of what server that you are on.
@Plastic Paragraph @Sal Rahman Nomadic identity, as invented by @Mike Macgirvin 🖥️ in 2011 and first implemented in the Zot protocol from 2011 and the Friendica fork Red in 2012 and used by Hubzilla and the streams repository today, goes even further.
Its basic functionality is to keep at least one clone of your identity on another server.
On most Fediverse projects, e.g. Mastodon, your identity is in your account and thus bound to one specific server.
Hubzilla and (streams) put "identity containers" into your account, so-called channels. Your identity is not directly put into your account, but into one of these channels. The channel separates your identity, your connections, your posts, your settings, your files etc. etc. from your login credentials.
This makes two things possible. One, you can have multiple, completely separate identities (channels) on one and the same account, accessible through one and the same login.
Two, and here does nomadic identity come into play: A channel can be cloned to another server.
Such a clone is not a dumb copy like when you move from one Mastodon server to another Mastodon server. It's a real-time, bidirectional, live, hot backup. And it's fully identical to the main instance of your channel, down to the identity, at least as perceived by server applications that know nomadic identity. Anything that happens on the main instance is mirrored to all clones, and anything that happens on a clone is mirrored to the main instance and the other clones.
For example: The main instance of my channel is on hub.netzgemeinde.eu. Thus, my identity is jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu.
I've got one clone on hub.hubzilla.de. Hubzilla and (streams) understand nomadic identity. They know that this clone is the same jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu. Even if I should send something from my clone which I've actually done once when Netzgemeinde was acting up, Hubzilla and (streams) connections still perceive it as coming from jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu.
The big advantage of this is resilience against server shutdowns. This is actually the very reason why Mike invented nomadic identity in the first place: He saw Mistpark/Friendica nodes disappearing into thin air upon short notice or spontaneously. He saw users lose everything from one day or hour or minute to the next and always have to start over from zero. And he knew that the only solution for this problem would be if a user's identity resided on multiple servers simultaneously.
Nomadic identity makes channels even resilient against the shutdown of the server that contains the main instance. You can always declare any clone the main instance. If you still have a main instance, it's demoted to clone. All of your connections on Hubzilla and (streams) are automatically changed accordingly. The only difference in practice between the main instance and a clone is that the main instance is the one that defines the identity.
A byproduct of nomadic identity is that it provides the best way to move an identity from one server to another. It first creates a clone. Then it declares the clone the new main instance, turning the old instance into a clone. Then it deletes the old instance. If the account on the old server doesn't hold any more channels, the whole account is deleted.
So not only can you move with actually absolutely everything, a Mastodon user's wet dream that will probably never come true, but you can do so with relative ease and quite safely, and most of all, you don't leave a dead identity/account behind.
Okay woah, this is on a whole new level. Been trying Friendica and Hubzilla, but seems a bit over the pay grade in terms of complexity. And oddly enough, not too many intro/how to videos of them on youtube either...
Will have to do some further reading, as these two don't seem to be as user friendly as the normal Fediverse apps. And those were already a mind-shift when coming from traditional social media.
Shrug. I'm part of the "plus other stuff" fediverse and have had nomadic identity in the fediverse since long before either ActivityPub or Bluesky existed. I have it today. I already had it for years when Mastodon first arrived in the old StatusNet (plus other stuff) fediverse. I'm semi-retired but migrating that work to ActivityPub in my spare time. Whoever told you that we've been unable to do so is in fact spreading uninformed bullshit.
@mikedev that's definitely the BlueSky folks talking about why the AT Protocol is advantageous.
Yes, they were mostly talking about Mastodon, but their blog post did seem to hide the fact that anything ActivityPub enriched with other protocols will most certainly empower nomadic identity.
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