this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the fediverse (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 6 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9799372

What's Meta up to?

  1. Embrace ActivityPub, , Mastodon, and the fediverse

  2. Extend ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse with a very-usable app that provides additional functionality (initially the ability to follow everybody you're following on Instagram, and to communicate with all Threads users) that isn't available to the rest of the fediverse – as well over time providing additional services and introducing incompatibilities and non-standard improvements to the protocol

  3. Exploit ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse by utilizing them for profit – and also using them selfishly for Meta's own ends

Since the fediverse is so much smaller than Threads, the most obvious ways of exploiting it – such as stealing market share by getting people currently in the fediverse to move to Threads – aren't going to work. But exploitation is one of Meta's core competences, and once you start to look at it with that lens, it's easy to see some of the ways even their initial announcement and tiny first steps are exploiting the fediverse: making Threads feel like a more compelling platform, and reshaping regulation. Longer term, it's a great opportunity for Meta to explore – and maybe invest in – shifting their business model to decentralized surveillance capitalism.

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[–] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works -1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

So, the Microsoft method - except that never really killed Linux.

It's really basically number 2 to get you to move to Threads, the exploit part is going to happen on the Threads side, and is basically going to be with ads (which you can block or avoid seeing) or with selling data about the fediverse in one platform (which defederation isn't going to be able to prevent against). But if embrace and extend is your problem, might as well defederate from kbin and mbin ...

[–] jackpot@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 months ago (4 children)

So, the Microsoft method - except that never really killed Linux.

explain

[–] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

Nowadays, it's more of a tactic for getting sued out of a couple of million.

Oh, hi dessalines, saw your downvotes, anything you disagree with specifically? Or is upvoting comments that say explain and downvoting comments providing said explanation just your vision of what you wanted lemmy to evolve to? Nice profile pic.

[–] dgkf@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing! Really interesting history in this article. It’s scary to think what a world would look like if Sun didn’t sue Microsoft into oblivion and put an end to this strategy.

We could be living in a world where Windows is the dominant desktop OS instead of our beloved Solaris.

To be serious, though, being sued/forced to settle isn’t an indicator that the strategy hasn’t worked. In fact, as is evident by the continued doubling down on the strategy by Microsoft and the unfettered execution of this strategy with Chrome, it’s clear that the value far outweighs the cost of the occasional settlement. The only real deterrent is antitrust regulation and that has been just about entirely defanged. These concerns are especially pertinent for something like Lemmy where there’s no central entity to soak the legal fees to go to court.

[–] AMillionNames@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Sun's problem was competing with Linux, which it couldn't. Nobody wants to pay premium for discount proprietary Linux. Sun's Java, however, still exists. Microsoft's browser is far from the norm. There's more alternatives to popular software than ever, whether it be office suites, video editing, 3d modeling, 2d painting, you call it. No, they don't compete with the industry leaders that have both stability and far more features, but they won't die off.

Embrace, extend, and exploit is just something that's being thrown around to see whether it will stick as an argument, and quite frankly, I already see the 3E's from already existing lemmy instances whose entire approach to the lemmyverse is essentially that - not that it makes it more ok, just that it's clear that people have other priorities when they throw the concept aroud.

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