Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival 'a far more attractive option'

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 356 points –
Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival 'a far more attractive option' | TechCrunch
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Short sighted mistake. Terrible Idea.

Adopt, Extend, Destroy Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. That's the game plan. It's worked so many times in the past.

It only works if people stop using Mastodon once Threads stops federating. ActivityPub is dead they will say.

Yeah and I'm not going to stop using my instance I love it to much, Maybe I will boot up my own personal one if anything. Just glad more people will hopefully understand and can use the Fediverse

When the big corporations leave people just need to reist the "oh the user numbers are so small now, the Fediverse must be outdated" fallacy. Just like XMPP. Still works great, we just need people to use it instead of the silos which are popular now.

People need to reject the idea that "bigger number = better service". The big players like that line of thinking because it cements their role of dominance and discourages competition. The fediverse will never be as big as Meta and it's all the better for it. IDK about others but I prefer a small, active userbase with interests similar to my own over an ocean of crap

They don't need to do that when the fedi is a thousandth of the size of their social networks lol. It's hilarious that you think they need our user base.

They don't care about the user base we have today. They want to eliminate the potential user base we may have in a decade.

It's not so much about wanting this user base as it is eliminating potential competition and maybe stamping out a place on the internet where people can freely and openly communicate.

Implementing ActivityPub at their scale costs way more than allowing a drop-in-the-bucket network to go on existing. The fediverse is not really competition for them

You can't really Embrace, Extend, Extinguish an open standard. Anybody can continue to use the unextended version and that's exactly what would happen if Meta tried it. They can't force servers to update or implement meta-specific features

You could say the same thing about any EEE strategy against anything not proprietary. However, evidently it works.

No it doesn't because you can't extinguish a publically available standard when anybody can write their own software. XMPP is the horror story used to warn about EEE, but it still exists. The fediverse is a small network right now. If Meta tried to EEE it, server admins who don't want to participate in a Meta-controlled network would not implement Meta's extensions. The network would splinter into a Meta-fediverse and the actual fediverse, which would be smaller than it is now but still exist as a free and open network that could continue to grow.

They can't turn off our servers, or force us to implement their tech, or stop us from implementing freedom/privacy preserving features.

EDIT: The reason EEE did so much damage to XMPP was because most users weren't aware of it. XMPP got so big because non-tech savvy users didn't even know they were using it. So when Google starting phasing it out users didn't even realize it, they only maybe realized they couldn't talk to one or two people now. But the fediverse has always been an explicit alternative to corporate social media and advertised that it is built on open standards that are not controlled by corporations. Its one of the key factors in a lot of the userbase's decision to be here. If a split were to happen, that would leave the remaining open fediverse still large enough to sustain itself (even if its smaller than it is at this moment).

It "still exists" but user adoption is basically zero, which is the opposite goal of open standards.

User adoption here is also "basically zero."

Lemmy is a rounding error in population versus larger sites. It's a walled garden.

You cannot weaken the fediverse more than the near-total lack of adoption that already exists.

User adoption here is also "basically zero."

Yes and there are a variety of reasons why it is that way, none of which includes being picked up by a megacorp for profit and then being dumped later after they've extracted all the value from it.

Assuming it is picked up and dropped, the fediverse is completely unchanged. That's my point.

exactly! The end result of EEE is basically the state we're already in. I also don't believe that's what Meta intends. Despite how a lot of ppl here feel about it, the fediverse isn't worth the effort of EEE. I think its more likely that Meta knows it's on its last leg and is looking for something to latch on to (see also: their failed metaverse initiative). And the EU's recent regulatory drive probably makes the fediverse look even more useful for Meta to attach itself to