I just read this point in a comment and wanted to bring it to the spotlight.
Meta has practically unlimited resources. They will make access to the fediverse fast with their top tier servers.
As per my understanding this will make small instances less desirable to the common user. And the effects will be:
Meta can and will unethically defedrate from instances which are a theat to them. Which the majority of the population won’t care about, again making the small instances obsolete.
When majority of the content is on the Meta servers they can and will provide fast access to it and unethically slow down access to the content from outside instances. This will be noticeable but cannot be proved, and in the end the common users just won’t care. They will use Threads because its faster.
This is just what i could think of, there are many more ways to be evil. Meta has the best engineers in the world who will figure out more discrete and impactful ways to harm the small instances.
Privacy:
I know they can scrape data from the fediverse right now. That’s not a problem. The problem comes when they launch their own Android / iOS app and collect data about my search and what kind of Camel milk I like.
My thoughts:
I think building our own userbase is better than federating with an evil corp. with unlimited resources and talent which they will use to destroy the federation just to get a few users.
I hope this post reaches the instance admins. The Cons outweigh the Pros in this case.
We couldn’t get the people to use Signal. This is our chance to make a change.
One thing I don’t understand is why would meta even federate with anyone outside of their own instances anyway?
Makes no sense to ever open up to allow any other instances in. Not like they are crying for users.
The fediverse just makes sense in their own bubble. Turn Facebook, Instagram, and their other apps into the fediverse and federate them all together.
I don’t expect them to ever open up to the actual fediverse. Same with BlueSky. I feel like all of these companies will USE the fediverse but in a closed bubble.
BlueSky will use their own protocol, so they will indeed be a closed bubble.
As for Meta, my (totally unjustified) hunch is that they’re expecting that other big names like Twitter, BlueSky, Google or Amazon will migrate or create their own ActivityPub services, and they want to be early adopters. If Threads is successful, I could see them migrating Facebook and Instagram too.
That’s my assessment also. This isn’t about extinguishing us, it’s about the other whales. AFAICT, they want and expect us us to be do well. (Delete could use a confirmation…)
It’s a classic tactic, you open up compatibility with an open source platform so everyone moves to the fancy app that supports it all (threads) then they drop support and kill the platform (fediverse). They’ll do it and will likely be successful unless they’re blocked completely right now.
I don’t see why we can’t just stay on the fediverse, enjoy threads as long as meta wants to play ball, and then wave goodbye when they decide they don’t want to federate anymore. Nobody’s forcing anyone to move from the fediverse to meta, and I think the current demographic here is unlikely to volunteer for another walled garden experience.
Worst case scenario is we end up right back where we are now- a niche community prioritizing independence and decentralization.
The problem with federating with anything owned by meta is that it is a data syphon. I don’t think we can fully protect ourselves from that. If they want the data most of it is easy to come by by just having any ol mastodon account or running a malicious instance or just scraping what is public and inferring the rest. However we shouldn’t be inviting a threat like that into our backyard. We should definitely not be federating with them. Furthermore it gives them the opportunity to bloat things down with ads or DOS small instances with amounts of traffic and data they can’t handle and they could make it prohibitively expensive to run an instance that federates with them. Nipping those problems in the bud requires showing them the door early.
On one hand, I think it could be possible that Meta is planning to federate with the fediverse with the ultimate goal of destroying it and replacing it with their own instances. Similar to what Google did with XMPP according to this article. https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
On the other hand, I also think it could be possible Meta is wanting to federate with the fediverse just so it can increase it’s data collection many times quicker. Why manage servers when you can connect to other servers and suck up data as and when Threads users interact with other lemmy instances.
Interesting thoughts. I suppose Meta will collect what they want to collect, it’s what they do, and this is all public discussion, anyone can collect it for any reason. And I don’t doubt that their involvement in the fediverse is secretly nefarious in one way or another.
Where I think our current situation is different from the Google/XMPP thing, is that, a bunch of platforms are going down the tubes really quickly and lots of people are looking for the next thing all at the same time. It gives a lot of room for a good platform like this one to gain ground rapidly. As far as I’m concerned, if for example instagram federated, and I could browse some good feeds outside of meta’s app & privacy permissions hell, that would be a plus for me. If they subsequently pulled what Google did with XMPP and suddenly backed out, I wouldn’t react by moving to instagram exclusively and I can’t really see why any user would make such a move.
I do think this sounds plausible. If they could become a dominant instance in the Fediverse, it would be easier to supplant it altogether. This is why decentralization is paramount.
They of course have no interest in growing the fediverse as an independent alternative, they want to use it for their own ends. They want to serve people the fediverse’s free content under their own umbrella and rules (and ads of course) to monetize stuff that doesn’t belong to them, or anyone else. It’s all pretty straightforward greed and capitalizing on an opportunity.
They could be doing this already, for all we know. We don’t know who owns all those little instances out there. Large corporations or government surveillance just need to set up a discreetly named instance or two and start subscribing, and they’ll get all the data they want. (In fact, could that be part of the reason for the explosion in silent bot accounts?)
I rly don‘t see it that way. The main reason they went for ActivityPub was to fuck Twitter. They just want to bind users long term to Threads and the combination WordPress, thumbler and meta is a very strong argument. I don‘t think they care so much about the data of the small userbase. The care about potential ways to monetise NSFW content without alarming the advertisers.
And they care about AP because that can make them even bigger then they are now.
I don’t have data, but I think going with ActivityPub also helps Meta to hurt BlueSky and their AtProto. By adopting ActivityPub, Meta is making it a Market Standard. Their userbase is huge, and other apps will need to use it to integrate with them. Why would someone adopt AtProto?
Honestly, I still have more hope for Signal compared to Lemmy/fediverse. As much as I like it here, Signal is just so much more user-friendly and explainable. I am also slowly making people around me set it up.
Comparing Signal to the fediverse is pretty silly. That’s like comparing fire to water. Signal is all about private messaging and the fediverse is all about public messaging.
No, I also wouldn’t compare them if the post and the comment above did not mention Signal. Anyway, I can still make the point that worse ease of use is more difficult to sell.
For those who don’t know, the strategy is called Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish. The phase comes from Microsoft who used this to (try to) crush competing document editors, Java implementations, browsers, and operating systems. Other big tech companies employ similar strategies.
Facebook coming to the Fediverse is the Embrace phase of this process and that makes Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, Misskey, and Akkoma the competitors.
People forget. They go for convenience. That is how we ended up in our present state. Facebook led efforts against net neutrality too in some countries. But how many know/remember that? Amongst all other things they did.
We have to have to remember microblogging is not the only thing that exists in the fediverse. Having access to threads from lemmy will pretty much have no impact.
If I wanted all of the Instagram content I would be on Instagram. I don’t want all of that content cluttering up another space and overwhelming another space.
The difference is here you can manage your own feed and pick and choose. Many folks don’t want metas apps on their device but wouldn’t mind some of the content. Folks that don’t want it don’t have to sub but those that do can benefit second hand.
I don’t really see how it’d be a loss. The fediverse has existed for a long time alongside big centralized social media, and Threads ostensibly having ActivityPub support doesn’t really change that.
We should be warry of anything big tech embraces. For example, Facebook reportedly uses servers running Linux. For that reason, we should all stop using Linux. Since Facebook has both an ios and an android app, we basically have to stop using our phones. We should shoot ourselves in the foot if there’s a chance we might get to bleed on them /s
Luckily, they can’t force federated access to be slow. Once you federate with them, their content is copied to your instance. It’s not necessary for every fediverse user to contact Threads, it’ll just be served from each user’s home instance
There’s no yet about it. The architecture of how federation works makes it impossible. They can potentially make images load slow, but for the rest of the content it is fundamentally impossible
I seriously don’t understand this mindset! If meta manages to make a better product it will definitely have more users, it’s just how everything works!
Users will have the option to pick between convince of meta or freedom of smaller instances. Who are we to decide for everyone?
Meta is cancer. You don’t let cancer grow and see if it ends up maybe causing issues or killing you. You cut every trace of it out as soon as it’s detected.
Meta has never done anything to show it is a corporation that acts in good faith. In fact it has proven time and time again it is actively acting in bad faith, against people, community, and privacy interests in order to drive profit with no regard for anything else.
Not everyone just accepts “how everything works”. If you don’t understand yet that not everyone here is a liberal capitalist (or a specter of a tankie), buckle up buttercup!
For real, freaking out about defederating so early is going to become a real problem if we do it every time someone new moves in.
Also do people really want Twitter to remain the only mainstream option for microblogging? Mastodon is great, but more competitors is only a good thing.
“Someone new” moving in is very different from “monopolistic mega corporation who have intentionally acted to harm users, invade privacy and spread misinformation” moving in.
Big corporations staying out of the Fediverse is the best outcome.
Meta and other big for profit players in social media have a bad history. Privacy, ads, profits at all cost. The people concerned about this early on are basing it off the previous behaviors of these companies.
I feel like it’s a good and early immune response.
I assume people who use the fediverse cares in some way about federation, do they not?
It’s like going to a community yard sale, except Amazon shows up and starts doing sales with massive discounts. They’re Amazon, they’re definitely going to be better at pretty much anything, and as the clearly “better” seller, everyone’s going there. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything, users might even get to buy better stuff. But it’s not really that much of a yard sale anymore is it? And the work of the people who developed the community just goes to serve Amazon. What’s the point of keeping amazon in the yard sale anyway, they’re more than capable of maintaining a storefront of their own. People who want to shop at Amazon can just walk through the front door of amazon fresh, it’ll always be there. The yard sale maintains it’s character and culture by not expecting it’s smaller sellers to compete with a behemoth.
I guess this will already have been said, but nonetheless:
I like the feeling of community as it is right now in the Fediverse very much.
Most of me hopes that it will not successfully federate with Meta, ever; or if it “must”, in a way that will be mostly irrelevant to me (communities I wouldn’t subscribe to in the first place, anyway).
I don’t see how that, in turn, would give Meta any control over the parts of the Fediverse that I care about. If they want to join and contribute in good faith, fine. If not, also fine. Why should it change anything for Fediverse “centered” communities?
I never cared about size or majority, but about quality of content and discourse. And I find that in those points, the current Fediverse much outshines anything else I’ve seen (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, …) in the last decade or so.
From my (admittedly, deliberately naive and provocative) perspective, what is the (possible) “added value” of Threads’ ad-infested feed over the community experience straight on Lemmy?
I share your priorities, but I don’t think you understand the depth and breath of how they can ruin this for us… The only guarantee is that, at some point (maybe tomorrow, maybe in 5 years), they’ll ask “how can we extract value from this investment?”. That’s what a corporation is, it can’t help it anymore than fire can choose how hot to burn
But even before then, we have misaligned goals. At best, their priority is to generate an endless stream of advertiser friendly content, extract information about users, and grow endlessly. At worst, they want to use us to help kill Twitter while ensuring federation of individuals does not become a viable model for social media
As for the first points, yes, that may happen, but is it a problem for users who already are part of a ‘better’ experience here than on the for-profit platforms?
I, for one, find much better discourse here than anywhere on reddit, let alone Meta or Twitter.
Also exemplified by me engaging much more here than ever on the others.
I do prefer quality over quantity - everyone is invited to join the table, but I don’t see much benefit in luring people there who would ultimately only dilute or be disruptive - ie, not really into the thing that’s happening here.
For the last point, well, legislators can certainly try. While telling people it’s all for their benefit and upholding freedom and democracy and equal opportunity and whatnot. And even keep a straight face.
By convincing people at large that social media run by individuals or groups isn’t viable.
Personally, I’d do it by attacking the credibility of the admins. Sow doubt. “they only run servers so they can steal your data”, “look at this guy! He pretends he cares about free speech, but he’s abusing his power to censor and radicalize people!” “The only reason you’d use these private instances is if you have something to hide. That place is for criminals”
They might even be able to get legislation passed to make it legally risky to run the servers in the US if they control the narrative
Only early adopters, technical people, and the privacy minded care about how this actually works, and we’ve been telling our friends and family how bad Facebook is for years (for good reason). At first they didn’t care, but now I get push back
Next, make it unreliable. If it goes down frequently, gets flooded by bots, or just starts to suck in general, most of the people here now will leave, no matter how important federated social networks are. Maybe they’ll go to servers that bend over backwards to become offshoots of threads, maybe they’ll look for Reddit clones elsewhere, personally I’d start up a private federation for friends and family if this goes south
Regardless, this place will become an empty mall - if it’s not a healthy form of social media I’m not going to spend much time here, and I’m extremely passionate about it
And the last option is just ads and incentives. Make it tempting and play to fomo.
They’ll probably do all of this to some degree, especially if we explode in numbers and present actual competition.
We’re ready to handle it, but we also need to make sure the battle lines are as far away as possible
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One thing I don’t understand is why would meta even federate with anyone outside of their own instances anyway?
Makes no sense to ever open up to allow any other instances in. Not like they are crying for users.
The fediverse just makes sense in their own bubble. Turn Facebook, Instagram, and their other apps into the fediverse and federate them all together.
I don’t expect them to ever open up to the actual fediverse. Same with BlueSky. I feel like all of these companies will USE the fediverse but in a closed bubble.
BlueSky will use their own protocol, so they will indeed be a closed bubble.
As for Meta, my (totally unjustified) hunch is that they’re expecting that other big names like Twitter, BlueSky, Google or Amazon will migrate or create their own ActivityPub services, and they want to be early adopters. If Threads is successful, I could see them migrating Facebook and Instagram too.
That’s my assessment also. It’s not about us, it’s about the other whales. They actually want to see us doing well, afaict.
That’s my assessment also. This isn’t about extinguishing us, it’s about the other whales. AFAICT, they want and expect us us to be do well. (Delete could use a confirmation…)
Well? Apparently, they plan on making it happen. https://help.instagram.com/169559812696339
It’s a classic tactic, you open up compatibility with an open source platform so everyone moves to the fancy app that supports it all (threads) then they drop support and kill the platform (fediverse). They’ll do it and will likely be successful unless they’re blocked completely right now.
I don’t see why we can’t just stay on the fediverse, enjoy threads as long as meta wants to play ball, and then wave goodbye when they decide they don’t want to federate anymore. Nobody’s forcing anyone to move from the fediverse to meta, and I think the current demographic here is unlikely to volunteer for another walled garden experience.
Worst case scenario is we end up right back where we are now- a niche community prioritizing independence and decentralization.
The problem with federating with anything owned by meta is that it is a data syphon. I don’t think we can fully protect ourselves from that. If they want the data most of it is easy to come by by just having any ol mastodon account or running a malicious instance or just scraping what is public and inferring the rest. However we shouldn’t be inviting a threat like that into our backyard. We should definitely not be federating with them. Furthermore it gives them the opportunity to bloat things down with ads or DOS small instances with amounts of traffic and data they can’t handle and they could make it prohibitively expensive to run an instance that federates with them. Nipping those problems in the bud requires showing them the door early.
On one hand, I think it could be possible that Meta is planning to federate with the fediverse with the ultimate goal of destroying it and replacing it with their own instances. Similar to what Google did with XMPP according to this article. https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
On the other hand, I also think it could be possible Meta is wanting to federate with the fediverse just so it can increase it’s data collection many times quicker. Why manage servers when you can connect to other servers and suck up data as and when Threads users interact with other lemmy instances.
No idea which is more likely.
Interesting thoughts. I suppose Meta will collect what they want to collect, it’s what they do, and this is all public discussion, anyone can collect it for any reason. And I don’t doubt that their involvement in the fediverse is secretly nefarious in one way or another.
Where I think our current situation is different from the Google/XMPP thing, is that, a bunch of platforms are going down the tubes really quickly and lots of people are looking for the next thing all at the same time. It gives a lot of room for a good platform like this one to gain ground rapidly. As far as I’m concerned, if for example instagram federated, and I could browse some good feeds outside of meta’s app & privacy permissions hell, that would be a plus for me. If they subsequently pulled what Google did with XMPP and suddenly backed out, I wouldn’t react by moving to instagram exclusively and I can’t really see why any user would make such a move.
I do think this sounds plausible. If they could become a dominant instance in the Fediverse, it would be easier to supplant it altogether. This is why decentralization is paramount.
Threads will be the dominant instance by a huge margin.
We don’t need them and they don’t need us.
Wasn’t Meta part of that as well with xmpp? They should not be trusted.
Not too sure if Meta was involved in the XMPP thing, but either way yes they shouldn’t be trusted.
Thanks for the link about the whole google xmpp affair. Really well written. More people need to see this
You’re very welcome. I saw it in another post yesterday and have been sharing it where relevant.
nah zuckyfucky has always been about destroying competitors. It’s not about data, it’s about absolute dominance.
Like most big companies out there. Destroy competitors to be the main one that everyone has no choice but to go to.
Embrace, extend, extinguish
They of course have no interest in growing the fediverse as an independent alternative, they want to use it for their own ends. They want to serve people the fediverse’s free content under their own umbrella and rules (and ads of course) to monetize stuff that doesn’t belong to them, or anyone else. It’s all pretty straightforward greed and capitalizing on an opportunity.
Just like they did with the Internet.
Once they’re federated they have full admin access. So they can see who liked posts, and lots of other info.
They could be doing this already, for all we know. We don’t know who owns all those little instances out there. Large corporations or government surveillance just need to set up a discreetly named instance or two and start subscribing, and they’ll get all the data they want. (In fact, could that be part of the reason for the explosion in silent bot accounts?)
Aw shit, yeah, obviously… The folks mining data are going to be using innocent looking nodes to do it… Okay you convinced me, I won’t pull the plug.
Oh… yeah… that’s totally it. By federating, they get to mine us for data the same as if we were on their service. Okay, I’ll pull the plug.
This reads like sarcasm but it isn’t.
I rly don‘t see it that way. The main reason they went for ActivityPub was to fuck Twitter. They just want to bind users long term to Threads and the combination WordPress, thumbler and meta is a very strong argument. I don‘t think they care so much about the data of the small userbase. The care about potential ways to monetise NSFW content without alarming the advertisers. And they care about AP because that can make them even bigger then they are now.
The thing about having advertiser friendly nsfw content is actually really insightful
I also think they don’t care about us, I doubt they even know we exist.
That doesn’t change that they would destroy us unintentionally. Like Vogons.
I don’t have data, but I think going with ActivityPub also helps Meta to hurt BlueSky and their AtProto. By adopting ActivityPub, Meta is making it a Market Standard. Their userbase is huge, and other apps will need to use it to integrate with them. Why would someone adopt AtProto?
Honestly, I still have more hope for Signal compared to Lemmy/fediverse. As much as I like it here, Signal is just so much more user-friendly and explainable. I am also slowly making people around me set it up.
Are you talking about Signal the private messaging service? I’m waaay out of the loop. Would appreciate a TL;DR or a ELI5.
Yes, they mean that one.
Comparing Signal to the fediverse is pretty silly. That’s like comparing fire to water. Signal is all about private messaging and the fediverse is all about public messaging.
Were you previously messaging everyone you know through reddit?
Do you understand how a comparative analogy works?
Sure, but Signal is more of just a replacement for WhatsApp and the likes. It can’t be compared to this type of platform really.
This is just a replacement for Reddit.
Signal : Whatsapp is the same as Fediverse : Reddit, they can very easily be compared
No, I also wouldn’t compare them if the post and the comment above did not mention Signal. Anyway, I can still make the point that worse ease of use is more difficult to sell.
For those who don’t know, the strategy is called Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish. The phase comes from Microsoft who used this to (try to) crush competing document editors, Java implementations, browsers, and operating systems. Other big tech companies employ similar strategies.
Facebook coming to the Fediverse is the Embrace phase of this process and that makes Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, Misskey, and Akkoma the competitors.
People forget. They go for convenience. That is how we ended up in our present state. Facebook led efforts against net neutrality too in some countries. But how many know/remember that? Amongst all other things they did.
People go where the people they care about are. Path dependency is king.
I think meta will dominate the space that federates with it. Hopefully none of my instances will do that… And I will be unaffected.
We have to have to remember microblogging is not the only thing that exists in the fediverse. Having access to threads from lemmy will pretty much have no impact.
Defederate from any instance that federated with meta.
Regardless of what anyone thinks about politics, nothing good will come by letting them in. I hope all current instances defederate, I know mine will.
Will lemmy.world defederate?
I want to know too, they arent saying despite a lot of their users asking which is irresponsible.
I anticipate they will federate and I will have to close my account and move.
I run my own instance here at twisti.ca and have the full intention of defederating
nice to hear that.
Is there a list of instances that have defederated (or announced they will) from Threads?
https://fedipact.online/
Thank you!
@peppy
We have to stick to our guns and keep supporting the small instances.
Admins needs to strike first and defederate from Meta before they do.
#fediverse #mastodon #lemmy
What good does that do the small instances? And how does that harm Meta?
All that happens is:
That’s more a loss for us.
Ya pretty much double-edge sword
On one hand, Instagram users can bring a ton of content, which “should” be good for the overall website
On the other, it’s Meta lol
Nobody wants Meta’s manipulated content. Let’s not forget why we call them Meta.
I don’t want Instagram content here! If I wanted Instagram-TikTok-type content I’d be there not here. I hope that crap stays away.
And yes, it’s Meta lol
If I wanted all of the Instagram content I would be on Instagram. I don’t want all of that content cluttering up another space and overwhelming another space.
The difference is here you can manage your own feed and pick and choose. Many folks don’t want metas apps on their device but wouldn’t mind some of the content. Folks that don’t want it don’t have to sub but those that do can benefit second hand.
I don’t really see how it’d be a loss. The fediverse has existed for a long time alongside big centralized social media, and Threads ostensibly having ActivityPub support doesn’t really change that.
The loss of potential growth opportunity… And all the potential negative effects happen anyway, no matter if you federate or not.
How about you do that once Meta does anything other than run their own instance and help to popularize the concept of the fediverse?
That’s the “Embrace” step
We should be warry of anything big tech embraces. For example, Facebook reportedly uses servers running Linux. For that reason, we should all stop using Linux. Since Facebook has both an ios and an android app, we basically have to stop using our phones. We should shoot ourselves in the foot if there’s a chance we might get to bleed on them /s
Nice sarcasm, very helpful for discussion. Anyhow, this has applied to Linux as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Luckily, they can’t force federated access to be slow. Once you federate with them, their content is copied to your instance. It’s not necessary for every fediverse user to contact Threads, it’ll just be served from each user’s home instance
Yet
There’s no yet about it. The architecture of how federation works makes it impossible. They can potentially make images load slow, but for the rest of the content it is fundamentally impossible
So far.
That’s a bit naive.
They can introduce latency, or server errors.
But more importantly, they can definitely
I will continue to use Mastodon and Lemmy.
Doing my part!
Imagine what the fediverse will be like when 90 year old daisy gets on it.
Grandma is about to learn about vore in church.
I just spit my coffee but… thank you xD
Imagine those old conservatives shock when lemmygrad contents show up on their federated feed.
I seriously don’t understand this mindset! If meta manages to make a better product it will definitely have more users, it’s just how everything works!
Users will have the option to pick between convince of meta or freedom of smaller instances. Who are we to decide for everyone?
Apt username, Problematic Consumer.
Meta is cancer. You don’t let cancer grow and see if it ends up maybe causing issues or killing you. You cut every trace of it out as soon as it’s detected.
Meta has never done anything to show it is a corporation that acts in good faith. In fact it has proven time and time again it is actively acting in bad faith, against people, community, and privacy interests in order to drive profit with no regard for anything else.
Kill the cancer before it kills you.
Not everyone just accepts “how everything works”. If you don’t understand yet that not everyone here is a liberal capitalist (or a specter of a tankie), buckle up buttercup!
For real, freaking out about defederating so early is going to become a real problem if we do it every time someone new moves in.
Also do people really want Twitter to remain the only mainstream option for microblogging? Mastodon is great, but more competitors is only a good thing.
“Someone new” moving in is very different from “monopolistic mega corporation who have intentionally acted to harm users, invade privacy and spread misinformation” moving in.
Big corporations staying out of the Fediverse is the best outcome.
Meta and other big for profit players in social media have a bad history. Privacy, ads, profits at all cost. The people concerned about this early on are basing it off the previous behaviors of these companies.
I feel like it’s a good and early immune response.
I assume people who use the fediverse cares in some way about federation, do they not?
It’s like going to a community yard sale, except Amazon shows up and starts doing sales with massive discounts. They’re Amazon, they’re definitely going to be better at pretty much anything, and as the clearly “better” seller, everyone’s going there. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything, users might even get to buy better stuff. But it’s not really that much of a yard sale anymore is it? And the work of the people who developed the community just goes to serve Amazon. What’s the point of keeping amazon in the yard sale anyway, they’re more than capable of maintaining a storefront of their own. People who want to shop at Amazon can just walk through the front door of amazon fresh, it’ll always be there. The yard sale maintains it’s character and culture by not expecting it’s smaller sellers to compete with a behemoth.
I guess this will already have been said, but nonetheless:
I like the feeling of community as it is right now in the Fediverse very much.
Most of me hopes that it will not successfully federate with Meta, ever; or if it “must”, in a way that will be mostly irrelevant to me (communities I wouldn’t subscribe to in the first place, anyway).
I don’t see how that, in turn, would give Meta any control over the parts of the Fediverse that I care about. If they want to join and contribute in good faith, fine. If not, also fine. Why should it change anything for Fediverse “centered” communities?
I never cared about size or majority, but about quality of content and discourse. And I find that in those points, the current Fediverse much outshines anything else I’ve seen (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, …) in the last decade or so.
That was my first thought too, until I found this:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Blog post explainer
Wikipedia page
From my (admittedly, deliberately naive and provocative) perspective, what is the (possible) “added value” of Threads’ ad-infested feed over the community experience straight on Lemmy?
I share your priorities, but I don’t think you understand the depth and breath of how they can ruin this for us… The only guarantee is that, at some point (maybe tomorrow, maybe in 5 years), they’ll ask “how can we extract value from this investment?”. That’s what a corporation is, it can’t help it anymore than fire can choose how hot to burn
But even before then, we have misaligned goals. At best, their priority is to generate an endless stream of advertiser friendly content, extract information about users, and grow endlessly. At worst, they want to use us to help kill Twitter while ensuring federation of individuals does not become a viable model for social media
How would they ensure this latter thing?
In my current understanding, it’s readily possible today (on Lemmy and related software), what could Meta do to keep this from continuing to work?
Convince the population at large it doesn’t work, or even that it’s dangerous.
Like community run utilities, universal healthcare, or any number of things that so obviously work better without a profit motive
Make the populace at large see the fediverse as a failed experiment, a hive of criminal activity, or a bunch of tiny toxic echo chambers
Hell, they could even push legislation that makes running social media out in the open impossible for individuals
As for the first points, yes, that may happen, but is it a problem for users who already are part of a ‘better’ experience here than on the for-profit platforms?
I, for one, find much better discourse here than anywhere on reddit, let alone Meta or Twitter.
Also exemplified by me engaging much more here than ever on the others. I do prefer quality over quantity - everyone is invited to join the table, but I don’t see much benefit in luring people there who would ultimately only dilute or be disruptive - ie, not really into the thing that’s happening here.
For the last point, well, legislators can certainly try. While telling people it’s all for their benefit and upholding freedom and democracy and equal opportunity and whatnot. And even keep a straight face.
By convincing people at large that social media run by individuals or groups isn’t viable.
Personally, I’d do it by attacking the credibility of the admins. Sow doubt. “they only run servers so they can steal your data”, “look at this guy! He pretends he cares about free speech, but he’s abusing his power to censor and radicalize people!” “The only reason you’d use these private instances is if you have something to hide. That place is for criminals”
They might even be able to get legislation passed to make it legally risky to run the servers in the US if they control the narrative
Only early adopters, technical people, and the privacy minded care about how this actually works, and we’ve been telling our friends and family how bad Facebook is for years (for good reason). At first they didn’t care, but now I get push back
Next, make it unreliable. If it goes down frequently, gets flooded by bots, or just starts to suck in general, most of the people here now will leave, no matter how important federated social networks are. Maybe they’ll go to servers that bend over backwards to become offshoots of threads, maybe they’ll look for Reddit clones elsewhere, personally I’d start up a private federation for friends and family if this goes south
Regardless, this place will become an empty mall - if it’s not a healthy form of social media I’m not going to spend much time here, and I’m extremely passionate about it
And the last option is just ads and incentives. Make it tempting and play to fomo.
They’ll probably do all of this to some degree, especially if we explode in numbers and present actual competition.
We’re ready to handle it, but we also need to make sure the battle lines are as far away as possible