This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Embrace, extend, extinguish. Only proven way to destroy decentralized, free, open source solutions.
First stage embrace might not even be malicious, but with corporations it will eventually lead to someone thinking: how can we monetize our position. It is just nature how business works.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
It's worth pointing out that the wiki article lists several examples of Microsoft using this approach but I wouldn't class many of them as successful.
Not only was it not very successful, it's an old outdated Microsoft playbook from the 90s/early 00s and was targeted at closed source competitors and freeware, not open source software where you can just fork out a separate version.
By all means block Meta instances if you want, but they have 3 billion users, they definitely don't give a shit about a "competitor" with a few hundred thousand users. If simply the presence of a corporation in the Fediverse is enough to destroy it, then it wasn't going to last long anyways. It's embarassing that "embrace, extend, extinguish" caught on around here just because it's a catchy alliteration.
By all means block Meta instances if you want, but they have 3 billion users, they definitely don’t give a shit about a “competitor” with a few hundred thousand users.
If they don't give a shit then why do they add federation feature at all? It doesn't make sense.
Right now it's only supported for Instagram accounts right? So slap in ActivityPub and you've got an already working way to extend your app. It's easy, it's fast development, and it's cheap. It makes tons of sense.
Also, Meta and the rest of FAANG are a company of a bunch of nerds with a history of open sourcing software. This isn't some crazy play, this is completely normal for them.
Let me offer a rebuttal. The fact that this playbook even exists and is well-known is a cause for concern. Yes, Microsoft’s campaign wasn’t very successful, but that doesn’t mean Meta won’t try or learn from Microsoft’s mistakes. I ask: is the probability of this happening non-zero, and if so, is it lower than you’re comfortable with? For me, and many others here, that answer is no.
Moreover, this is a greater problem: Meta is well-known and has practically infinite marketing budget. They can spin their app as the de facto, causing many people to lose control of their data. By association, some people will blame the Fediverse and not Meta. Defederating signals that we are not willing to participate with them and tells potential Fediverse users that they will not be able to engage with us—and whatever they decide, we cannot impact more.
The crux of my argument is risk management. Defederated is a conservative measure to prevent possible issues in the future.
It looks like articles today are saying that Meta is delaying integrating ActivityPub at launch.
That said, I'm not seeing how we get to the last E, extinguish. By its very nature, ActivityPub is decentralized to avoid total control. So even if Meta embraces the technology and wants to monetize it (because capitalism, of course), extending ActivityPub would (hypothetically) be open source - or they would fork it, diverging and making their version closed, and otherwise not function in full with other ActivityPub instances (like with kbin, Lemmy, and Mastodon). Without buying the platform from the developers in full, I don't see how ActivityPub or the greater Fediverse dies. And I could just be missing something obvious, so if you can explain how we get there, I would really like to hear and understand.
I guess the only way I could see it is if Threads got so popular that people literally stopped using the other apps - but I also don't see that happening, because anyone already using stuff like Mastodon are using it because Twitter, Facebook, etc, suck ass and they've moved away from sites like that.
EDIT: Thanks to the one person that actually replied, I saw I was on the right track at the end, but failed to see the obvious (as I assumed).
It’s hard to predict but the extinguish part would come from bigger non-Threads instances implementing compatibility with Thread-only extensions (in the interest of their users, or for money) and fragmenting the community. Threads then becomes the defacto ActivityPub standard. Maybe some instances stay true to the standard but with extremely reduced communities because now they can’t see what other instances are publishing. So now you have to decide between your ideals and your social network. At best, you’re back to square 0.
It happens in the extend part.
Large corporation will have much more resources, they will implement features and refactoring, which small open source teams do not have capability to implement. They will start pulling users because they support features that other do not.
This also means that they will start getting control.
And then finally they just cut the communication, and split the community. All the way they can claim to be working "for the community"
Spontaneous idea of how to use copyright law for keeping Meta out of the Fediverse (more for fun):
Introduction: Parts of the Fediverse, including Mastodon, are software licensed under the APGL license. This license is a great choice because it forces the ones running the software to grant users access to the source code. GPL for example would allow to run proprietary services based on GPL code. The AGPL does not. Companies like Meta and Google will likely not use AGPL code because it might force them to also publish their proprietary systems behind the scenes. However, this does not help much for keeping the Fediverse save. They simply implement their own software which will not be open source.
Therefore we may need another approach. Defederating is the simplest and in my opinion currently the best. It's easy and keeps people in control.
However, there could be some 'automatic' approach using copyright law. It's a hack which allows to use existing law to regulate the way instances can federate.:
Open question is, who owns the copyright of X?
Big corpos don't want to take it over, they want it gone.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
My first reaction is this sounds like a great way to onboard more folks into the fediverse - but is this a perhaps a paradox of intolerance? Does Meta as a corporate entity have a natural intolerance to the freeness and openness of the fediverse, and if so, does it need to be violently rejected?
I don't understand why this is even a question. Is the tragedy of the commons not taught in american education? Is Land Clearance(one example of many linked) and Enclosure not taught? (Serious question open to anyone, I do not know what history is taught outside major european countries)
This is essential basic history to understand how land developed from being a collectively worked upon thing, decentralised, owned by everybody that worked on it, into something that was owned by a tiny tiny number of people so that they could exploit it to the maximum degree.
Decentralisation is the creation of a commons. The goal of corporations is centralisation of power and monopoly. They are at complete polar opposites in goals. The entire point of the fediverse in the first place is to destroy the centralised power of web corporations who took what was originally a digital commons populated by thousands of sites and communities and through a form of digital enclosure turned it into a space controlled by a handful of companies.
Learn history other than the popular military shit folks. It is essential in analysing what affects you.
Unpopular opinion but defederating Meta is a terrible idea. What are people thinking will happen? Allow them to federate and you'll have mastodon users able to view and interact with posts from Threads without needing to be concerned about ads or tracking, without giving over any more control of privacy than they would to any other fediverse instance, and without needing to possess accounts homed within the Meta infrastructure.
Defederate them, and anyone who wants to interact with anyone on threads will most likely need to maintain a presence on both and handover more personal data to Meta than they otherwise would.
Defederating is actively hostile to fediverse users.
I don't want to interact with anyone on Threads. It is new and it is Facebook.
Was about to say just that. I'll love to reject people that only follows big corpos.
It isn't the people. It's just if I already decided not to use Facebook or twitter. Why would I get back into bed with the devil on an experimental product?
They have also already declared that if you federate with them, your instance has to abide by their code of conduct, so they already throwing their weight around.
Meta joining the fediverse is like Raytheon joining anti-war protests. They are not there for sincere participation.
You're acting like there's only two situations: The entire Fediverse defederates with them, or the entire Fediverse federates with them. That's not the case.
I, personally, do not want to interact with anyone using Threads, because Meta has a proven history of poor moderation and of manipulating the narrative for political gain on Facebook and I see no reason to think they won't do the same here. I am not the only one who holds this opinion. Those of us who feel this way can use instances that defederate with them, and have our way.
If you want to interact with them, you can maintain an account on an instance that does federate with them. You do not need to have a Threads account, nor does anyone else.
Strongly disagree here, better to cast them down now while the chance is there. No mercy or quarter provided to Meta considering their track record.
If anyone is foolish enough to go there, let them, but do not drag us towards them.
