I’ve said this elsewhere, but I don’t really agree with the article’s premise about what happened to XMPP.

XMPP was a niche thing before Google appeared, and it remained a niche thing after Google left. That said, it would have been much better had Google continued to support it!

Not yet, but they’ve said it will be. Personally I’m excited to see “mainstream” social media using ActivityPub, but you’ll find that it’s quite a divisive issue.

Let’s consider your email example – I don’t like a lot of stuff Google has done. By your proposed rules, should, say, ProtonMail block all emails from Gmail to prove a point?

I remember it well, and I was annoyed by it!

But in the end, I’d argue Google dropping XMPP simply restored the status quo: XMPP went back to being the same niche thing it was before Google started supporting it.

The Fediverse is just a term for “social networks that use ActivityPub”

Imagine if Facebook offered RSS feeds. That’d be nice right? It wouldn’t ruin anyone’s experience if they started supporting an open standard like that.

Supporting ActivityPub is no different. It will let people on third party clients connect to Facebook properties. Don’t want to do that? You don’t have to!