@simon_lucy @Gargron @rabble @ricmac āNeedā is a strong word Iād say. Instead, Iām coming from the perspective of what āthe fediverseā, an ecosystem of connected (ānot isolatedā) platforms, promises regarding inter-platform connectivity.And a simple angle into that, I think, is the embedding of GIFs, videos, polls, emoji etc in social media, which has grown into a de facto standard over time for what were originally text-based platforms (over on BlueSky, theyāre still whinging about the lack of such).Thatās an enhancement or enrichment of the UI and the scope of social interaction or conversation that basically expands into the big space of features that the web browser affords. In addition to whatever written language is used in the text of a platform, the additional elements of representation, communication and interaction all contribute to forming its āsocial language and formatā, which then ties in closely with its culture.The more the fediverse promises connectivity between different platforms, the more thereās an expectation that these ālanguages and formatsā get translated across the protocol between platforms. Thing is, this isnāt just about text, itās about a platformās full gamut of visual elements and their formatting or arrangement. That is, itās about their UIs. The more a platformās UI gets lost as its translated/interpreted by another platform, the more there isnāt real connectivity at a meaningful social (media) level. Expectations matter here too, where disappointingly ālossyā interactions are simply uncompelling for many.The web browser and internet is an important backdrop to this IMO. All web pages just work (kinda mostly) as they are intended in everyoneās web browser. Thereās no loss. Each link takes you to where and what youāre supposed to. Same with books, or PDFs, or films or music. Fidelity of format is and has always been paramount.And so, as I claim, the protocol is only the beginning, the foundation.The actual site of the fediverse is in how UIs get translated across different platforms.At some threshold of mis-translation, the connection, and the promise of the fediverse, is broken (even if not for everyone, as full or wide-band connectivity is the promise IMO).Coming back to the web browser and the internet ā where itās important IMO to recall many fediverse advocates describing it as an opportunity to āremake the internetā ā an obvious alternative presents itself (I think): Our fediverse clients/interfaces ought to be capable of rendering any form of social media in its intended/designed format just like the browser and the internet. And of course, this doesnāt preclude user customisation such that some or even many might want to restrict content to a certain format. But, itās also relevant I think to point out that many have accounts and are active on multiple platforms, both on the fediverse and on big social and interact with overlapping sets of people. Which is to say that using the browser/smartphone-OSs, people are already doing what Iām suggestingIn fact, Iād argue that what we have now is strange. Each piece of social media interaction has to get translated into whatever my current platform decides is the appropriate format and understanding of that interaction. In reality, thatās really not much progress on the screen shots used to share inter-platform content on big (unfederated) social media ā¦ and Iād say itās a policy that clearly germinates from the same design culture (where the fediverse is still in its ālets clone big socialā phase).So, UI-Matching (which requires a good deal of Data-Model-Matching) ā¦ thatās the actual fediverse. What weāve got now is some weird middle ground that mostly breaks its promises.