I've been reflecting lately on projects like @fedify, @hollo, and @botkit. Sometimes I wonder if I'm solving problems that very few people actually need solved. How many developers truly want to build their own #ActivityPub server from scratch?

It feels a bit like inventing shoes that let people walk on their hands all day. Would there be a viable market? How many would actually buy them?

That's the sense I get with these projects. They do have users who find them tremendously valuable, but the total user base is inherently limited. The tools serve an important function for a small audience of specialized developers.

There are moments when my motivation wavers. When the user community consists of just a handful of enthusiastic supporters, it's sometimes difficult to maintain momentum and justify the ongoing investment of time and energy.

And yet, there's something meaningful about creating specialized tools that solve complex problems well, even if they're only used by a few. Perhaps that's enough.

#fedidev

@hongminhee I totally get where you’re coming from!

I think the factor missing here is the impact you have indirectly: being a framework, you impact a small number of devs who in turn will impact a tremendous amount of users.

I mean, Ghost typically! We are switching my partner’s website to it, and I made the choice because of the upcoming Fedi integration

So that’s just my perspective I wanted to share; you are actually impacting way more people than you might interact with directly!

@hongminhee hey, thanks for sharing!
I can totally understand you.

For me I'm currently only following you and your projects. I have a lot of ideas coming to mind, whilst seeing your projects and I will definitly realise some as soon as I have more time.

I really like that you build this foundational frameworks and that you are lowering the entry hurdle to build a cool tool not just e.g. mastodon but really on the "fediverse layer". I also really like the documentation.

Thanks for doing that!