I'm strongly of the opinion that instead of killing Apollo, Selig should featureflag most of the features, scale it back, implement ActivityPub quickly and a guided process to get started. Just killing Apollo gives Spez exactly what he wants, especially with the amount of algorithm rigging they are doing to block ActivityPub/Lemmy/Kbin info from making it into Top and Popular.
therealpygon
joined 1 year ago
A luke-warm summary with comical references that only summarizes the first few paragraphs. I hope people don’t only read that summary and think “but that was Google”.
The article is a warning that given a chance, based on the past actions of Microsoft, Google, other corporations and even Meta itself, allowing Meta to participate in any way with ActivityPub will most likely kill ActivityPub. There is no easier way to ensure profits than by killing any hint of competition that might take users away from their services. This is almost always achieved by seemingly “bearing gifts” in the form of users or financial backing. By participating, they will really be trying to prevent users from exploring other options at all. Once they have prevented the majority of users from leaving their platform, and have become “the” largest player in the ActivityPub space, they will have successfully made alternatives irrelevant. The fact that people are even considering this might be a good thing is proof that the strategy works, which is why they use it.