This is a good point that I address in a talk (that hasn't yet been published on YouTube), but to summarize: ideally we want SSB to be a decentralized invite-only networks, so that someone has to pull you into their social circles, or you pull in others into yours. It has upsides and downsides, but we think it more naturally corresponds to relationships outside tech.
Manyverse is the first SSB app that implements DHT invites: https://gitlab.com/staltz/ssb-dht-invite and the plan is to make it easier for anyone to invite anyone else, so that we rely less on a single "cluster". We want to get to the point where there are isolated islands of SSB networks.
But the point you seem to be talking about is also discovery, e.g. something like a "search" feature for friends. We don't have any idea in mind for that, and we also question whether that's necessary at all, specially as we seek to bring this app to countries with limited or no internet access.
Thankyou for taking the time to reply to me - it's very good to hear your thoughts and I very much respect what you and the other SSB 'builders' are doing out there. I totally see why you'd want the network to be this way. I can see that there is a good momentum and common interest alive on the network and it's a very strange feeling to be on the network, but unable to participate. In a way, I'm taking advantage of the fact that you're paying attention here on HN - because I cannot reach you on SSB.
> Manyverse is the first SSB app that implements DHT invites
Ok - this is cool! I can see how SSB/Patchwork/Manyverse could be used to replace old invite-only forums (which I've enjoyed with 'real life' friends in the past.)
So, yes, I do think discovery is a huge problem for SSB (and Dat, too) because one of the blissful (and terrible) things about the Web is that arbitrary people can find each other. This seems to be an even bigger problem now that certain networks are massive in scale - so the 'island' approach is one that excites me. Not sure about 'isolated', though. With Patchwork, I begin to wonder why I'm able to read things that I can't respond to - and then I realize that I probably don't want to anyway. I may just not understand the whole thing tho. :)
Manyverse is the first SSB app that implements DHT invites: https://gitlab.com/staltz/ssb-dht-invite and the plan is to make it easier for anyone to invite anyone else, so that we rely less on a single "cluster". We want to get to the point where there are isolated islands of SSB networks.
But the point you seem to be talking about is also discovery, e.g. something like a "search" feature for friends. We don't have any idea in mind for that, and we also question whether that's necessary at all, specially as we seek to bring this app to countries with limited or no internet access.