this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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The size difference between Meta and Mastodon isn't even funny. Mastodon is basically a rounding error.
But even if Meta wouldn't even represent a significant proportion of the fediverse's user base, their presence could influence the development and evolution of ActivityPub and the network. Meta's financial resources and influence could drive changes that a smaller, independent network like the Fediverse might disagree with but have little power to resist.
How would the fedi not have the power to resist? People will just create forks removing unwanted changes. Given the grassroots nature of the fedi, I can bet there's a ton of people willing and qualified to do so. Meta can't do anything to the fedi, we're already independent and fully functional without their involvement so we have zero reliance on them. I don't see how we'd ever have to rely on them.
We don't have to rely on them. They initially support open standards, extend those standards with proprietary features, then use those features to outcompete smaller rivals. You can't deny that this would be in their interest. You can't deny that Meta is known for anti-competitive behavior. Why trust them blindly, just because they do something which looks like they have (or act on) the same values than you?
Out compete with whom? Mastodon is not their rival. Our population is non existent to theirs and is completely irrelevant. They already have a locked down protocol that we can't interact with. I cannot stress this enough: they give zero fucks about the fedi population, and they have nothing to gain from attempting to absorb and extremely small community compared to theirs. Also literally the most resilient community out there.
So I ask again, who are they competing with? They have nothing to gain from us.
They don't need to absorb it. They just have to prevent it from growing as fast. The Fediverse grew orders if magnitude over the last month. If this continues, everything will be the Fediverse. Meta obviously doesn't want that and Threads is a panicked attempt to "nip it in the bud".
If that was the case, then they'd go for Bluesky which will inevitably grow significantly bigger.
Could be. Perhaps the developers of Bluesky realized the dangers of letting them in and showed them the door early. Perhaps it's still to small to take seriously. Who knows.
What we do know though is that the Fediverse grew over leaps and bounds recently and is thus very much on their radar. That's a bad place to be.
Also I don't know if Bluesky protocol is public anywhere? It's possible it could bridge with ActivityPub as well.
That was not my point. I never focused on the "what it is right now" because that can easily change or be changed, but rather on "what could potentially happen".
These actions we need to prevent, or mitigate. Joining them or letting them join us does not do any of that. We're letting them dictate the playbook right now.