I'm probably always going to boost posts about the history of the #Fediverse if only because it's the intersection of several of my interests but I also think it's important to acknowledge the earlier efforts of decentralization.
First I just think it's really important to acknowledge the hard work that has already been done by people for years, often with little recognition on shoestring budgets. While most of us were using and working on closed, centralized, alternatives these folks kept working on keeping the original dream of the internet alive. Personally I think we owe them a debt of gratitude, the least we can do is remember their work. The #fediverse literally wouldn't be here today without their contributions.
Second now that so many of us are here we're gonna start building and iterating on what exists today. It would be beneficial to look at previous efforts and see what we can learn from them.
What constraints produced the Fediverse we've inherited?
What can we do to make it better?
What business approaches were tried before to monetize social networking built on open protocols?
How have communities shaped technical choices and how have they directed development efforts?
By virtue of our choice to be here we know just enough to be dangerous with our decisions. I think almost everyone can relate to knowing enough about how a system works to make changes even if we don't fully understand the impact of our changes.
Before making grand investments we should probably stop and take a thorough inventory of how we got to this location, what's been done before, and the impact our actions will have.