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Mastodon is a “competitor” to Facebook the way a grandma doing middle school tutoring in her backyard is a competitor to Harvard.

smolder 5y ago
Yes, of course, at least now. Yet, it does present a non-negligible risk, in the same way that some startups can become unicorns, or some college kids web project can become a global giant.
- rkk3 5y ago
  > Yet, it does present a non-negligible risk, Negligible: so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant. The first page of search Mastodon results for me are all about a heavy metal band from Atlanta. Sounds like a negligible risk to me.
  - jrm4 5y ago
    But when you have near-infinity resources, everything is technically "non-negligible," and that's the case here. Let's say there's a 0.01% chance that Mastodon beats Facebook. Okay, what's 0.01% of however much Facebook makes? That's how much they should spend on it, and I'd bet that amount of money is nothing to scoff at.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      This is the fallacy of ignoring the existence of extremely small numbers. if mastodon had a 0.01% chance of "beating" facebook, it would have many $millions in funding.
    - rkk3 5y ago
      It sounds like you are arguing that there is no level of risk low enough to be ignored, and that there is no such thing as negligible risk. So if there is 2^-500 chance of an alien invasion, lets put a team on it!
      - jrm4 5y ago
        It sounds like you're missing the point of this entire thread's argument. Does the team cost about 2^-500 of your resources and attention? Then, YES, do it. That's my point. I'm not saying that this is what you SHOULD do all of the time, I'm saying that it is entirely plausible, even likely, that Facebook might deliberately "go after" Mastodon because it very very easily can.
        rkk3 5y ago
        There is a cost, clearly. Also what is benefit? Now the projects creator can't talk about it to his friends and family it's doomed to fail. lol.
        jrm4 5y ago
        Loving, LOVING this fantasy world you're living in, in which a primary driver of a person's behavior at a big company is the esteem of friends and family, and, you know, not because the boss said so and/or ruthless thirst for profit and domination.
        rkk3 5y ago
        Your response is somewhat unintelligible... I was saying what is the impact (damages) if this guy can't post about his software on facebook to his friends and family. Do you even think this would be in the top 100 ways to crush the competition???
        jrm4 5y ago
        Yeah, we're missing each other somewhere. I'm just talking about Facebook's incentives here. It makes sense for someone who works for Facebook to try to deliberately crush Mastodon, because even if the risk of Mastodon beating Facebook is very low, it's not zero, and Facebook's pockets are so deep that it might as well, even if the risk is low. I'm not sure what individual guy you're talking about?
Lio 5y ago
If that were so, why censor mentions of it?
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Same reason the above comment mentions. It's a wild west, and while that brings freedom it also brings cowboys (i.e. people using it to post dangerous links or whatever - is the reasoning).
- tayo42 5y ago
  you dont know that theyre censoring mentions of it. You have one post that got removed that happened to have it in it. And an article trying to be a victim and jump on the facebook is evil bandwagon. Do you have proof of a trend?
  - minoru 5y ago
    The post was now updated; it mentions that at least three more FB posts with links to joinmastodon.org were marked as spam: https://octodon.social/@yhancik/106897948169079191 https://octodon.social/@yhancik/106897948169079191 Four data points ain't a lot, but you can no longer claim it's a one-off event either.
noptd 5y ago
... and Instagram was just a photo sharing app - how could it ever compete with Facebook?
rvz 5y ago
Yes. It doesn't cost them anything to censor simply mentioning the word 'Mastodon' since they can do it anyway and it sounds like a weak version of anti-competition. What you're really looking for is what happened to Parler which looked like a serious act of anti-competitive behaviour which showed the true brutish nature of these large companies destroying an alternative social network. That was a much worse form of 'anti-competitive behaviour' than this.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Grandmas don't tend to undergo exponential growth. Networks can. Whether or not Mastodon will is another question. (I've been on it since ~2016.) But in FB's position, paranoia pays, and is worth throwing billions at, if deemed a sufficient threat.

smolder 5y ago

Yes, of course, at least now. Yet, it does present a non-negligible risk, in the same way that some startups can become unicorns, or some college kids web project can become a global giant.

rkk3 5y ago
> Yet, it does present a non-negligible risk, Negligible: so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering; insignificant. The first page of search Mastodon results for me are all about a heavy metal band from Atlanta. Sounds like a negligible risk to me.
- jrm4 5y ago
  But when you have near-infinity resources, everything is technically "non-negligible," and that's the case here. Let's say there's a 0.01% chance that Mastodon beats Facebook. Okay, what's 0.01% of however much Facebook makes? That's how much they should spend on it, and I'd bet that amount of money is nothing to scoff at.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    This is the fallacy of ignoring the existence of extremely small numbers. if mastodon had a 0.01% chance of "beating" facebook, it would have many $millions in funding.
  - rkk3 5y ago
    It sounds like you are arguing that there is no level of risk low enough to be ignored, and that there is no such thing as negligible risk. So if there is 2^-500 chance of an alien invasion, lets put a team on it!
    - jrm4 5y ago
      It sounds like you're missing the point of this entire thread's argument. Does the team cost about 2^-500 of your resources and attention? Then, YES, do it. That's my point. I'm not saying that this is what you SHOULD do all of the time, I'm saying that it is entirely plausible, even likely, that Facebook might deliberately "go after" Mastodon because it very very easily can.
      - rkk3 5y ago
        There is a cost, clearly. Also what is benefit? Now the projects creator can't talk about it to his friends and family it's doomed to fail. lol.
        jrm4 5y ago
        Loving, LOVING this fantasy world you're living in, in which a primary driver of a person's behavior at a big company is the esteem of friends and family, and, you know, not because the boss said so and/or ruthless thirst for profit and domination.
        rkk3 5y ago
        Your response is somewhat unintelligible... I was saying what is the impact (damages) if this guy can't post about his software on facebook to his friends and family. Do you even think this would be in the top 100 ways to crush the competition???
        jrm4 5y ago
        Yeah, we're missing each other somewhere. I'm just talking about Facebook's incentives here. It makes sense for someone who works for Facebook to try to deliberately crush Mastodon, because even if the risk of Mastodon beating Facebook is very low, it's not zero, and Facebook's pockets are so deep that it might as well, even if the risk is low. I'm not sure what individual guy you're talking about?

Lio 5y ago

If that were so, why censor mentions of it?

mhh__ 5y ago
Same reason the above comment mentions. It's a wild west, and while that brings freedom it also brings cowboys (i.e. people using it to post dangerous links or whatever - is the reasoning).
tayo42 5y ago
you dont know that theyre censoring mentions of it. You have one post that got removed that happened to have it in it. And an article trying to be a victim and jump on the facebook is evil bandwagon. Do you have proof of a trend?
- minoru 5y ago
  The post was now updated; it mentions that at least three more FB posts with links to joinmastodon.org were marked as spam: https://octodon.social/@yhancik/106897948169079191 https://octodon.social/@yhancik/106897948169079191 Four data points ain't a lot, but you can no longer claim it's a one-off event either.

noptd 5y ago

... and Instagram was just a photo sharing app - how could it ever compete with Facebook?

rvz 5y ago

Yes. It doesn't cost them anything to censor simply mentioning the word 'Mastodon' since they can do it anyway and it sounds like a weak version of anti-competition. What you're really looking for is what happened to Parler which looked like a serious act of anti-competitive behaviour which showed the true brutish nature of these large companies destroying an alternative social network. That was a much worse form of 'anti-competitive behaviour' than this.

dredmorbius 5y ago

Grandmas don't tend to undergo exponential growth. Networks can. Whether or not Mastodon will is another question. (I've been on it since ~2016.) But in FB's position, paranoia pays, and is worth throwing billions at, if deemed a sufficient threat.