Kev Quirk, one of the admins of Fosstodon (a Mastodon instance), destroys Meta in an email exchange.

giallo@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 874 points – Kev Quirk (@kev@fosstodon.org)
fosstodon.org

The exchange is about Meta's upcoming ActivityPub-enabled network Threads. Meta is calling for a meeting, his response is priceless!

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I don't think anyone is questioning your cynicism of Meta's intentions or motivations, but the nature of the Fediverse is specifically designed to make it very difficult (if not impossible) for any one party to control the entire thing. It's a question of how not if.

The worst thing I could see is something like the development of React where FB has an overwhelming advantage in sheer resources and ends up having a major influence on the direction of software trends. But that would still just be a popularity thing and would not actively stop anyone from doing their own thing. Maybe there is something in the license for ActivityPub that would let them pull a Google-vs-Oracle reverse engineering, but again that won't stop other instances or developers from ignoring them if they wanted.

Knowing they want to do it, combined with their track record, should be enough reason to resist. We don't have to understand HOW to be wary of it.

Edited to add - there is ample evidence it's what they will do, and absolutely zero evidence that they intend to use us for anything but their own interests. It's literally the one and only thing they have done as a company.

Here's the rundown:

  1. Meta jokes fediverse
  2. Meta introduces convenient, cool and innovative features not originally on fediverse code
  3. Everyone wants new features, but features are locked under propietary code.
  4. Everyone flocks to meta's instance.
  5. Meta is now the fediverse and the fediverse is nothing but a husk of its former self

What? Defederating doesn't fix that.

  1. Meta doesn't join the fediverse
  2. Meta introduces convenient, cool and innovative features not originally on fediverse code
  3. Everyone wants new features, but features are locked under propietary code.
  4. Everyone flocks to meta's product.
  5. Meta is now the fediverse and the fediverse is nothing but a husk of its former self

The solution is 1: to make sure users understand that it's a bad idea to flock to meta's instance, and 2: to implement that feature in the fediverse if everyone likes it so much they're willing to leave. The solution is not defederating now because of the posibbilty that they do that in the future.

But meta cannot claim all the fediverse as accesible content. Therefore making it akin to using facebook and reddit. Separate services that serve different demographics

It's not cynicism if the other party has a track record of behaving in an anti-competitive manner. The Fediverse became a competitor once it showed non-negligible growth.

It's not cynicism, it's weariness.