zlacker

I've always thought it would be neat if there were loosely affiliated communities that host as an API only with a standard front end for the UI.

So I run 'example.com', but only serve (ex:) content via JSON. Allow competing implementations of the API on AWS, Cloudflare, self-hosted, etc.. Then let UIs like Apollo act like an aggregator and an OIDC provider for their users.

The API side could moderate their own content and restrict access to UIs that play nice and the UIs could refuse to surface content from API sides that suck.

The only thing Reddit has going for it IMO is the uniform UI across communities and they seem determined to make that a crappy experience from what I've seen.

>>donmcr+(OP)
I’m building it with both web and native Mac/iOS, on top of mostly rss for static friendliness. White labeled web and Apple App Store native SwiftUI deployments. Offline friendly

>>donmcr+(OP)
This is kind of more or less what ActivityPub and/or 'Mastodon compatible API' is to be honest.

>>donmcr+(OP)
You just described the ActivityPub universe. There are quite a few servers that are minimal ux or api only, and there are a ton of clients that allow you to use multiple servers on whatever platform you want, with mobile, desktop, and web clients.

>>donmcr+(OP)
> So I run 'example.com', but only serve (ex:) content via JSON. Allow competing implementations of the API on AWS, Cloudflare, self-hosted, etc.. Then let UIs like Apollo act like an aggregator and an OIDC provider for their users.

Reddit has something like this, but definitely not as intentional,

- https://www.reddit.com/r/all/.json

- https://www.reddit.com/r/all/.rss

- https://www.reddit.com/r/all/.xml

>The only thing Reddit has going for it IMO is the uniform UI across communities and they seem determined to make that a crappy experience from what I've seen.

Old reddit had stylesheets and they could be very interesting. I still prefer that over the current thing they built.

>>rovr13+q4
Did you just reinvent RSS feeds? :-)

>>rovr13+q4
If I remember correctly, those end points are going away with the api changes.

>>rovr13+q4
Yes stylesheets were great fun :D https://old.reddit.com/r/ooer