Every podcast is an RSS feed. Most podcast listeners don’t care about that aspect, but they still get the advantage of every podcast app having essentially the same set of content (compared to, say, YouTube for video or Audible for audiobooks, each of which have the lion’s share of content).
That's right. And if users want push notifications or search and you say "that's not possible, because every podcast is an RSS feed"... You have not explained anything, you have not satisfied them with an explanation, and you are ultimately wrong about it being impossible.
It's an implementation detail not a feature, and if it started getting in the way of what users need podcasts to do, we would change it not hide behind it. Just like there's no reason for one account per domain other than "that's what we went with for now".
I am generally on the side of product/usability. Nobody cares about the underlying protocol.
However, the more I learn about what Jay, Paul, and team are doing, the more I realize that the protocol is actually important. Them being federated protocol nerds, while also having to focus on supporting millions of users is super interesting to watch unfold. This could be really cool because they really thought about the underlying factors, from go.
There are many user issues like "when I block someone, they should no longer follow me" which seem so simple from a user POV, but are actually complex from the federated protocol POV. I am learning a lot by watching what happens here.
As possibilities expand, the "ATmostphere" can be improved. Maybe in two years everyone wants to go to a new Personal Data-Store that offers new features X or Y, or Bluesky is sucking because of Z...
This architecture of making users sovereign is what's really at stake with the 'user = site' idea; the meaning of that is powerful & clear to techies for what it ongoingly unlocks & enables, but most users arent expected to share that technical fervor. It insures the ATmosphere doesn't get trapped or corralled into some local maxima, can't be enshittified since there isn't the same switching cost as all other networks. And it enables growth & extension of the ATmosphere, by allowing innovation at the edge.
More generally, I'd argue that users don't have to be familiar with and attracted to features for them to be features. No one knows every function in their spreadsheet software and there's some they probably will never use, but the spreadsheet is known & respected because it has such a broad library of functions to enable so so much calculating, in so many different ways. Users can grow & change where they are in the adoption curve over time.
Features evolve on healthy & fetile platforms. Giving users sovereignty & mobility enables new platform to be created off-Bluesky/main: it is a meta-feature to allow new features.
