The post delves into how mobile push notifications contribute to centralization within decentralized services and offers ways to circumvent this issue, even in mainstream scenarios. Addressing Android apps, the discussion includes various decentralized applications like emails, Mastodon, Nextcloud, Git servers, and more. It reviews how developers often opt for Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) by Google for push notification support and outlines the steps for integration. Additionally, the article explores the implications for mobile applications of decentralized and self-hostable services and the strategies employed by developers to manage centralization challenges. It also introduces the concept of UnifiedPush as a decentralized alternative. By supporting webpush with VAPID, the need for push gateways can be eliminated, potentially leading to widespread adoption of webpush standards across different services.
https://unifiedpush.org/news/20250131_push_for_decentralized/