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People on the Fediverse expected it very much. Meta already was trying to talk to the larger instances "off the record"[1]. Fediverse users are already planning

• hhh 3y ago
  This behavior is pathetic. As long as Meta is open to federation to other instances, this can only be a good thing for the entire ecosystem.
  • CaptainFever 3y ago
    > As long as Meta is open to federation to other instances That’s a pretty doubtful condition, especially if Threads becomes too successful for the Fediverse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis... > Fediverse users are already planning to boycott any instance Though if this is true, yeah, I dislike that too. It should be individual admins’ choices.
    • smoldesu 3y ago
      > if Threads becomes too successful for the Fediverse. I wager most Fediverse users aren't worried about this (at least speaking for myself). The status quo is 2 or 3 big private companies and a few thousand federated alternatives. If Meta betrays the community, things will go back to square one and core functionality of their app will start to falter. They need the community more than the community needs them.
      • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        When threads goes live there will be tens of millions of people with existing Meta user profiles entering it overnight. There are currently ~13M Mastodon users, most of which I'm sure are not really active. So depending on how federation into ActivtyPub is set up, it will be like Eternal September x 100. Their content will likely dwarf anything out in Mastodon land. And judging by what I see on Facebook and Instagram, I don't hold out high hopes for the quality of that content or the behaviour of those users. I'm not worried about it really because I think the ethic of fediverse as such that they will be quickly de-federated. But it won't be fun along the way.
        • smoldesu 3y ago
          Mastodon doesn't fill your timeline with content from other instances, by default. If 100 million Facebook users federated with Mastodon overnight, 0 organic Meta-related posts would make it into my timeline. Only content reposted from Meta by people I follow would show up. Defederated or not, Meta will have pretty much zero bearing on the instances outside their bubble.
          • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
            This is true, though people from Threads will likely be able to follow, and comment on Mastodon profiles and posts and cause issues that way.
      • dahwolf 3y ago
        "They need the community more than the community needs them." You have to be kidding me. The entire fediverse is little over 1M MAU, almost all of them not monetizable. So...tiny and useless. Threads can launch whilst being fully defederated and instantly become the fediverse.
        • smoldesu 3y ago
          All of this is true, but none of it contradicts what I said. Meta needs Federation to flaunt the bigwig researchers and developers from other instances. They will eventually build their own stockpile over time, but they wouldn't start with ActivityPub support if their intention was to eventually remove it. If Meta leaves the Fediverse, it goes back to how it is today. That's not a nightmare scenario for most people who are already using Mastodon, and it would put the leverage back into the hands of the users who could coerce Meta users to switch instances for more lax federation. The ActivityPub ecosystem stands to lose nothing either way. Meta is walking a fine line with the remainder of the community that trusts them, but stands to integrate into a pretty nice system if they pull things off.
          • dahwolf 3y ago
            Alternative trajectory: 1. Meta conditionally federates with Mastodon instances that sign the deal (allow ads to be pushed, data to be collected, etc) 2. Small/vocal instances reject the deal and defederate. 3. Some large instances do take the deal. 4. Small/vocal instances defederate from the large ones. 5. Large Mastodon instances become pointless as they're isolated from the rest of Mastodon and have no real value over simply using Threads. 6. Large Mastodon instances implode, and the Mastodon fediverse becomes even smaller than it already is.
  • yard2010 3y ago
    That's bs there's clearly no symmetry here
  • crossroadsguy 3y ago
    This behaviour is pragmatic.
  • corobo 3y ago
    Yeah, I do get the EEE angle people are worried about but that should really be halted from the Extend phase onwards if and when it comes up, otherwise people are just going to use the popular one - which will be Threads. It will start with an established userbase. It will start with the marketing Meta can throw at it. Nobody outside of the HN crowd gives half a fluff about distributed social. They'll use the one that lets them interact with people they know. If that means they can talk cross-instance, sweet, they will. If they can't, Mastodon and ActivityPub in general continues to be a pain that the majority wont bother with. If that's Mastodon's goal, fair enough. I think it's a bad goal.
    • dahwolf 3y ago
      Fully agree, been watching that space and it's insanely dysfunctional. It's a technical disaster as well as a cultural disaster. But indeed, if the goal is to self sabotage and remain an irrelevant corner of misfits, all good.
      • luckystarr 3y ago
        Care to elaborate? I haven't had the pleasure of checking Mastodon out. (You're talking about that, right?) And also, which instance are you talking about?
        • Shared404 3y ago
          FWIW, I've been using the Fediverse as my primary social media for ~a year, and I've not experienced these technical/social issues being described. Yes instances occasionally have issues... But I've experienced less outages than on twitter. Yes there are unsavory types on some servers, but in my experience most are pretty good at defed-ing from them if needed, and you can block/mute individuals.
          • luckystarr 3y ago
            So the previous poster was spreading FUD? I'm feeling like I'm transported back to the Ballmer years.
  • iopq 3y ago
    Just like when it embraced the XMPP chats?
  • iguana_lawyer 3y ago
    The only pathetic behavior I see is the CEO who is so obsessed with Augustus Caesar he cuts his hair to look like him.
  • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    There is a very real concern that there will be a flood of hate speech, scams, and ads. Meta has shown themselves to be absolutely terrible at moderation in recent years. Believe it or not, most Mastodon / Fediverse admins & users aren't interested in taking over the world and having a huge reach. They just want a nice community.
    • joepie91_ 3y ago
      It continues to boggle my mind how so many tech folks just don't seem to understand that "maximum scale" is not everybody's idea of success, and that not everything is built to "take over the world".
  • luckystarr 3y ago
    It's not pathetic. EEE has been shown time and time again (MS, Google, etc.). Also, Meta is a company known for dubious practices and anti-competitive behavior. So why trust them?
• hrisng 3y ago
  Why? I would love for the general public to be able to connect to Fediverse. I don't love Meta per se, but let be real here, the majority of people are not gonna sign up for random instances that run by someone they don' know, to interact with a very small and niche subset of people, with a risk of it being shut down by that said person due to whatever personal circumstances they may have. It's the biggest obstacles when convincing people to switch to Mastodon. If this rumor is real and Threads takes off, you can still stay in whichever instance that you like, but now be able to get updates from the artist, the experts, educators, politicians, the influencers that would not have joined the Fediverse otherwise. And more importantly, more people now can get updates from you. Reach might not be something you personally appreciate but it's very important for content creators.
  • quickthrower2 3y ago
    Embrace, Extend and Extinguish fears seem like a good reason
    • devnullbrain 3y ago
      So does this mean independent email providers should block GMail?
      • quickthrower2 3y ago
        Too late for that :-). But good example: gmail is gatekeeper for “deliverability”. EEE doesn’t have to be a malicious conspiracy. It can happen as an emergent property of consolidation.
        • knubie 3y ago
          There are also an increasing number of email clients that are “gmail only.”
          • _thisdot 3y ago
• Wowfunhappy 3y ago
  If my current mastodon instance blocks Meta, I will move to a different instance which federates with them. The entire point of federation in my eyes is that it lets me talk to as many people as possible.
  • luckystarr 3y ago
    Sure, that's your prerogative, federation broadens your reach. But what's the point if it only opens the door to toxicity and negativity? It's about meaningful connections, not just more of them.
    • Wowfunhappy 3y ago
      Another thing I like about Mastodon is the lack of an algorithm. I only see posts from people I explicitly choose to follow (or posts those people explicitly choose to boost). I do not plan to follow people who are excessively toxic or negative. If Threads launches, and 100% of its users are toxic, I will not follow anyone on Threads. But that seems unlikely to me. Edit: I suppose it's true that people I don't follow can still reply to my posts. Idk, I suppose it's possible that federating with Threads would make my replies super toxic. But, like, let's see how the community develops first.
• jtode 3y ago
  I have been a rather happy user the last few months but the last couple of weeks it's turned pretty narsty; downloaded my data and turned off my main instance account, and I'm waiting for the schism to happen before I go back in. I have zero issue with Meta using ActivityPub, cause whatever they try, it makes them at least somewhat permeable in theory. I do have zero intention of interacting with them on any level though.