Very interesting discussion, thanks!
Several of you mentioned a desirable future where you could have one identity on a generic server that you use via many client apps that each do their specialized thing, which is a goal we share for #software:commonspub
My understanding is that a blocker to that has been the lack of adoption of AP C2S (with apps using more specialized APIs like Mastodon’s instead). We initially tried to address that in CommonsPub by structuring the database and AP library in a generic enough way so it can handle any types of activities and objects and by implementing a GraphQL API so that client apps would have very powerful and flexible capabilities to create custom features and experiences (without the complexity of implementing ActivityStreams or JSON-LD).
I think we made a breakthrough recently though, thanks to using LiveView which enables us to build realtime web apps in Elixir (a backend language) without any JavaScript or frameworks like React. With our new project Bonfire, what this means is that instead of client apps having to be something that runs in your browser or on your phone, the clients can be LiveView apps running on your device that’s plugged in at home next to your router, and the server hosting your identity is a generic AP-only service in the cloud which syncs with that device.