Exactly, you probably want a 3rd party to handle the money exchange part. Doesn’t mean a Fedi app can’t facilitate everything else.

I don’t know what Mafia-led grocery stores you use but if I put in a pickup order at my local store I trust them to actually have what I asked ready at the time, place, and cost we agreed to.

This is some Azula-level irony.

I mean, if their content was signed you could verify the authenticity of the certificate. Usually the business name appears in the cert.

Accepting payments and creating “contracts” over the Fediverse is no bueno at the current time. I think it would require some kind of 3rd party, almost PayPal-esque (PayPal has its own controversy) service that would create the obligation and associated penalties that come with an online transaction. Could be the instance itself but as you said that’s a risk most instance owners wouldn’t take.

I think there could at least be some kind of button or check box that says, “I don’t need to know how the Fediverse works, just sign me up!” and it would randomly choose one of the big instances.

Using Boost for Lemmy and it’s almost like I never switched.

Does Lemmy have the equivalent of Reddit flair? That made some posts easier to avoid or focus on that others.

From other replies it sounds like this isn’t guaranteed. I tried logging into pixelfed using my Mastodon info and it didn’t work (stopped me as soon as I gave the instance).