So, a year from now the big instances will have lost all their users…

blazarious@mylem.me to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 10 points –

…or how do you all picture the endgame of Meta's EEE campaign?

All I see right now is a 10x increase of people in the fediverse and while this may be challenging, isn't it ultimately a good thing?

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I think their strategy is not gonna work. Meta is universally hated by everyone using the Fediverde now. The majority of Mastodon / Lemmy users are here looking for alternatives.

Also, I dont think Facebook and Instagram users are looking for a Twitter alternative.

Also, Meta is good buying stuff (Instagram, WhatsApp) but they have a history of trying new apps that are never successful.

I predict Meta Threads will close in a couple of months.

I've seen so many shills on today bending over for meta, don't know if they're plants or just love the taste of boot leather

the general population kinda doesn't care, it's just us in the tech-bubble who do. I'm afraid it's going to be just as popular as the other meta services.

No. More people = always good is not true. Anyone who simply wants everyone in here I guess wants to see the content become facebook-level of quality?

More people isn't always good. But imagine some organizations and journalists that for whatever reason still are on Twitter can now be persuaded to sign up to Threads. Well, now they're in the fediverse.

And if the content from Threads is overwhelmingly bad we can always defederate and the fediverse still isn't destroyed.

So, how do I picture the extinguish part?

Well, now they're in the fediverse.

No, they're not. Threads has federation disabled. And might never enable it

Okay, if it'll never enable federation then all our discussions are obsolete!

The misnomer is in the extinguish part, which is why the meme is pretty weak. Most services do not disappear, they simply stop growing and coast or dwindle.

The same fate is likely for us, due to the superior resources Zuck will have compared to us, once he is connected. We will no longer have any unique value we can provide, there will never be a reason to migrate to us.

However, Zuck had the resources to co-opt the entire development process. He can offer things like video hosting, that are out of reach for most Instance owners. Simply put, he can beat us. He'll have access to everything we have, plus his own resources. Anyone that stands in his way can be bought, he can throw millions without blinking an eye.

Our only real chance is to never sign the deal in the first place. Otherwise our irrelevance is virtually guaranteed. The idea we can actually outperform Meta well enough to pull people from it is frankly laughable to me. Do people get pulled from facebook often? Why not? It's crap, after all.

Agreed. Anybody want to invite TruthSocial? I didn't think so.

It would be fine, except the extinguish part. All it would take is for facebook to no longer federate content and all those new users would be gone instantly.

We'll just be back where we started then, but now alot more people would know about the fediverse and could switch to Mastodon if/when Threads goes downhill

Doesn't seem like a bad deal to me tbh; I'll be able to follow some artists I like on Threads through the comfort of Mastodon in the meantime

Facebook doesn't let you see only your subscribed content. Neither does Instagram.

I see no reason to believe they'll let you escape The Algorithm on Threads. That alone should drive people to non-Threads instances.

And how will this extinguish the fediverse? We'll still all be here, won't we?

It depends on how many communities are on Meta's instances. Imagine if a year from now, Meta's instances are all the rage. It's like lemmy.world on crack, where 95% of the communities you see browsing all are from meta.world. Everybody hates that it ended up this way, but that's just the way it shook out because Meta has the best performing servers and a huge population of shitposters on Threads creating funny memes who probably don't even know instances besides meta.world even exist.

But then Meta decides they're done with the fediverse and decides to close off access to meta.world. Now 95% of the fediverse is effectively vanished, and you either have to switch to Threads to regain access to those communities, or you have to stay on the 5% of the fediverse that's still left and basically start from scratch all over again.

I see. But won’t it be more like Microblogging and not have any communities like Lemmy? I guess we’ll have to see…

Growth is (generally) fine, as long as it's decentralized and/or by trustworthy partners. I'm already uneasy about how big lemmy.world is comparatively, even though I've never seen anything to suggest any bad intent. Meta would be neither.

If we could keep Meta's volume to a level where they cannot exert undue influence, I'd even be OK with them being part of it.

I meaaaan maybe the typical Redditors will move over to Threads and all that remains here will be geeks and weirdos like us?

There was a time when the typical redditor was a geek and weirdo 😅