Fireside Fedi

Fireside Fedi is a conversation show about the Fediverse as it is actually lived. Ozone speaks with builders, artists, tinkerers, and everyday users who are trying to make online life feel less trapped inside corporate platforms. The pace is brisk, but the show is not polished into stiffness. It leaves in the small clarifications, pronunciation checks, jokes, and detours that make the guests feel like people rather than case studies. Recent episodes range widely. Babette Knauer talks about federating libraries and the limits of playing along with corporate social media. Tommi connects D-Web work, learning by tinkering, philosophy, and open-source excitement. Myles Wakeham brings a long view from recording, music, and studio life. Hong Minhee appears through the lens of Fedify, Hollo, Botkit, and the satisfaction of seeing community experiments inspire others. Matt Tutt brings the unusual angle of a reluctant SEO working against big-tech dependence. Riely Testut discusses AltStore, app-store gatekeeping, indie discovery, and why iOS remains its own hard problem. Mona’s episode shows another side of the same network: photos, alt text, a lab named Summer, gardening, care, and a quieter North Coast life. Russ Sharek adds performance, clowning, and the courage of being in the room. Across the show, technical infrastructure and social care keep meeting each other. ActivityPub, D-Web, alternate app stores, federated libraries, and open protocols matter because they change who gets to participate and how people find one another. The show is skeptical of shallow engagement numbers. It prefers actual replies, shared knowledge, useful mistakes, and communities where someone will answer a question kindly. Big platforms are criticized, sometimes sharply, but the show’s energy is more constructive than bitter. It keeps returning to the idea that people can build, post, teach, repair, and welcome one another without surrendering every interaction to a closed system.