@rwg @jdp23 @Lady @jonny @noracodes
Hi Jon thanks for sharing the piece. I think it highlights the fact that the ongoing definition and redefinition of the space itself is a core feature of what the fediverse is (and as such will never be settled!).
In my opinion, there is benefit from zooming in to the specific ways federation is implemented and conceptualized, which is something I hope to contribute to such discussions with my phd work (soon). One of those distinctions you point out in your post: the desire to have a singular interconnected system (THE fediverse) and the insistence on a pluralist system, where multiple things run side by side and perhaps don´t interconnect even though they technically can.
As for multiprotocol applications: I saw it described as the "polyglot" approach (here https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3125433.3125455 ) which is an interesting way to think about it: is the fediverse a single protocol space or a polyglot space. In my phd work I only consider the Ostatus/AP lineage, even though that decision is also based on workable scope and what was historically there.