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How do we feel about federating with Threads?
(kbin.social)
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this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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My main concern is that this is just ~~Facebook~~ Meta utilizing the “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” strategy that Microsoft used against Netscape in the 90s.
I feel like our small communities here - which are just getting started - are going to be flooded by Threads users who don’t even know what federation is and then all the content, power & control will realistically be in Meta’s hands.
My gut says that is probably Meta’s goal, but what do I know? I’m just some internet person.
Threads, despite its name, is not a threaded discussion forum like the Threadiverse. It's more like Mastodon, a microblogging protocol. I don't think we'll be seeing Threads users flooding here because the format of these communities isn't really compatible with that.
How would power be handed to Meta just because Threads has more users? The communities are under the control of the instances where they were created, and Threads users couldn't create larger communities to replace them either since it's only a microblogging platform.
The concept is that overtime, communities and connections will organically grow. If Threads has a disproportionally large ubserbase, then overtime they will create a similarly larger number of communities. This then would give them a lot more influence over the fediverse and anyone federated with them.
For smaller instances that become accustomed to seeing those communities and content, the danger is that Meta can just “pull the plug,” defederate, and extinguish the competition, or at the very least hurt their competitor's users experiences when interacting with content from Threads. The reason they might do this is purely because it fits into their business model which is selling user data to advertisers; it is in Meta’s interest to have as much data on their users as possible, and to have those users be based on Meta’s platform.
As I said in another comment, I could be totally wrong and this could benefit the fediverse. I just think the opposite is more likely because I do not trust Meta. I think they will play nice in the beginning, but then start to flex their muscles once they feel they’ve got enough influence.
Also, there is nothing stopping them from expanding Thread’s capabilities to include the threadiverse. Kbin has already demonstrated both are possible in one app.
If they pull the plug on ActivityPub and take their users back, things would just be exactly how they are now. Since they can't create communities or magazines like we can (and it's very unlikely Meta is going to try to implement this), if they want to participate in discussion here, they'll be posting in our communities. Kbin's magazines are uniquely suited to this as well because content gets sorted into them based on hashtags, so they wouldn't even need to know that they're posting to a magazine to do it.
We're already in a situation like you describe though with lemmy.world's near monopoly on large communities, which seems concerning to me as is.
I hope you’re right.
And I agree, lemmy.world does have a near-monopoly on large communities. I attribute that to lemmy being more developed and having apps ready and kbin simply not being completely ready in June (no shade thrown at ernest - he’s great and I like kbin better.) I hope overtime kbin grows some of its own large communities so it’s not so skewed towards a single instance.
Just to clarify what I mean, lemmy.world's position is bad for the threadiverse as a whole. It's where most of our users and largest communities we all post to are. If .world goes down, it'd be a major blow to our current, mostly stable, position and we'd be significantly worse off than if Meta were to come and go. Things are improving though and communities are slowly spreading to other instances! I also deeply appreciate that we have kbin as an alternative to Lemmy - thank you Ernest
I think you're right though.
Right!?
Decentralized networks are a threat to Meta’s entire business model which runs on advertisements. That doesn’t work very well when your users can just jump to another instance without ads.
Meta wants to nip the fediverse in the bud now before it’s too late for them to get a foothold. I think they’re gonna do it by (trying) to port their massive userbase to Threads, make other instances dependent on their content and users, and then pull the plug so they can go back to selling everyone’s information to advertisers.
Edit:
https://i.imgur.com/4U0g4Bk.png
I saw this image floating around a few days ago that I think helps illustrate that even if a fraction of Meta's userbase migrates to Threads it will be enough to dominate the fediverse. Instagram has two billion users, and the entire fediverse only has around 1.5 million.