5 ms·

Threads now has 100 million accounts, Mastodon has about 13 million (2 million daily active users, daily active users on Threads is probably a similar ratio). I

by not2b 3y ago

Threads now has 100 million accounts, Mastodon has about 13 million (2 million daily active users, daily active users on Threads is probably a similar ratio). I don't think they care about slurping up everything. In fact, I think that they won't go through with federation as it isn't in their interest. Why? If they federate, I can follow people who post on Threads, but I get a chronological timeline I control and no ads. They make money on ads. So why should they federate? To "slurp up everything"? They already have much more than Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse have.

lapcat 3y ago
> 2 million daily active users c/daily/monthly
w0m 3y ago
> Why? If they federate, I can follow people who post on Threads, but I get a chronological timeline I control and no ads. It's kind of their carrot to get good will and PR from the vocal-but-small nerd-crowd though I think. Facebook could outright block people with adblockers; but don't as an example because (people would throw a shitfit). Good PR/Vibes from federating could go far fighting the 'ewe meta' stigma attached to Threads.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Also potentially some "look, we can play nice" signalling to the European Commission; with the DMA on the way this has to be on their minds.
  - Kye 3y ago
    The EU Commission is on the EU Mastodon instance, so they can do better than signal if they federate. They can just @ them. https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission
- not2b 3y ago
  I think it might have more to do with regulatory concerns, maybe they think that appearing to be more open will make them seem less monopolistic. On the other hand, they aren't launching in Europe because of their troubles there.
bickeringyokel 3y ago
Could meta inject ads into the fediverse? That would surely get them banned in a lot more instances, but I guess it would technically be possible for them to make 1 in 10 of your posts an ad.
- not2b 3y ago
  An ad would have to be a post to get into the metaverse, and for it to be pulled in someone would have to be following the account that posted it.
- not2b 3y ago
  For Instagram, an ad is essentially a post from someone you don't follow. It seems you're suggesting that they'd make an advertisement and pretend that some friend of yours posted it. They never do anything like that on Instagram and I doubt if they would try it, it could be a huge legal risk making it appear that some person with a big following is endorsing a product when they haven't.
  - bickeringyokel 3y ago
    That's the possibility I'm wondering about. I wasn't really imagining they would pretend it was posted by someone you're following but surround it with some Sponsored content message that made it clear they injected it into the feed of the person you are following. It sure seems like a terrible idea to me, I'm just trying imagine how exactly they could make it go from an interesting idea of federating, to something that is terrible as meta is one to do. I think probably the real reason they are federating is to avoid anti-trust issues.
    - not2b 3y ago
      If someone on a different instance decided to follow a famous celebrity, and Meta tried to attach that celebrity's name to an ad without their permission, the celebrity would sue and it would be a slam-dunk win. Meta can't use someone's name without their permission. Even someone non-famous could sue and win. Some very big companies have gotten into trouble that way. Adding "sponsored content" is not a get-out-of-lawsuit-free card here. There'd be nothing stopping that celebrity from shilling for a product on their Threads feed and their followers would all get any such shilling. There's already some of that on Mastodon, which is OK if instances permit it (authors, artists and small businesses promoting themselves).
some_furry 3y ago
> Why? If they federate, I can follow people who post on Threads, but I get a chronological timeline I control and no ads. They make money on ads. So why should they federate? To "slurp up everything"? They already have much more than Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse have. The thing you get from federation is more granular social graph data than you can obtain from public scraping. Not just "X liked this post" but also "when did X like this post?" Meta specializes in social graph analysis. More data leads to more insights, which leads to more targeting for advertisements in places they do control. There's the direct profitability angle. Additionally, it will make Meta's properties feel more "complete" or connected to the rest of the world (despite many people's distaste for Meta as a company and their business practices). Being able to stay in touch with Meta objectors through ActivityPub will lead to more social pressure (or inertia, depending on your perspective) to stay locked into Meta properties for their incumbent users. They only stand to gain from this plan. There is a cost, of course: Some CPU is expended that doesn't include adverts. But they've probably done the math and concluded that they can accept that hit and still profit.
- not2b 3y ago
  But if Tumblr does the same, they're just as complete. And public scraping can approximate "when did X like this post?" by just running it frequently. And you haven't mentioned the moderation costs to Meta. They'd have to decide who to federate with, which instances to block, which accounts to block.
  - soatok 3y ago
    > And you haven't mentioned the moderation costs to Meta. What about my comment obligates me, in any way, to mention that? It seems like an odd thing to demand. What's going to happen is: the far-right pockets are ad-unfriendly (ad-adverse?), so they're out. But the far-left instances are anti-corporate, so they'll block Meta. What remains are heavily skewed towards the statist democrat types who are generally civil and well-mannered. I wouldn't expect the moderation burden to be too heavy from that crowd. The only significant moderation cost will be if Zucc abandons all sense and federates with instances that allow right-wing extremists. That would be an expensive blunder. (Still stupidly rate-limited on my main account, so have to reply from this one. Dang it.)
pwdisswordfishc 3y ago
> Threads now has 100 million accounts Instagram has 100 million accounts.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Instagram has 2.3 billion accounts.

by not2b 3y ago

lapcat 3y ago

> 2 million daily active users c/daily/monthly

w0m 3y ago

> Why? If they federate, I can follow people who post on Threads, but I get a chronological timeline I control and no ads. It's kind of their carrot to get good will and PR from the vocal-but-small nerd-crowd though I think. Facebook could outright block people with adblockers; but don't as an example because (people would throw a shitfit). Good PR/Vibes from federating could go far fighting the 'ewe meta' stigma attached to Threads.

rsynnott 3y ago
Also potentially some "look, we can play nice" signalling to the European Commission; with the DMA on the way this has to be on their minds.
- Kye 3y ago
  The EU Commission is on the EU Mastodon instance, so they can do better than signal if they federate. They can just @ them. https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission https://social.network.europa.eu/@EU_Commission
not2b 3y ago
I think it might have more to do with regulatory concerns, maybe they think that appearing to be more open will make them seem less monopolistic. On the other hand, they aren't launching in Europe because of their troubles there.

bickeringyokel 3y ago

Could meta inject ads into the fediverse? That would surely get them banned in a lot more instances, but I guess it would technically be possible for them to make 1 in 10 of your posts an ad.

not2b 3y ago
An ad would have to be a post to get into the metaverse, and for it to be pulled in someone would have to be following the account that posted it.
not2b 3y ago
For Instagram, an ad is essentially a post from someone you don't follow. It seems you're suggesting that they'd make an advertisement and pretend that some friend of yours posted it. They never do anything like that on Instagram and I doubt if they would try it, it could be a huge legal risk making it appear that some person with a big following is endorsing a product when they haven't.
- bickeringyokel 3y ago
  That's the possibility I'm wondering about. I wasn't really imagining they would pretend it was posted by someone you're following but surround it with some Sponsored content message that made it clear they injected it into the feed of the person you are following. It sure seems like a terrible idea to me, I'm just trying imagine how exactly they could make it go from an interesting idea of federating, to something that is terrible as meta is one to do. I think probably the real reason they are federating is to avoid anti-trust issues.
  - not2b 3y ago
    If someone on a different instance decided to follow a famous celebrity, and Meta tried to attach that celebrity's name to an ad without their permission, the celebrity would sue and it would be a slam-dunk win. Meta can't use someone's name without their permission. Even someone non-famous could sue and win. Some very big companies have gotten into trouble that way. Adding "sponsored content" is not a get-out-of-lawsuit-free card here. There'd be nothing stopping that celebrity from shilling for a product on their Threads feed and their followers would all get any such shilling. There's already some of that on Mastodon, which is OK if instances permit it (authors, artists and small businesses promoting themselves).

some_furry 3y ago

> Why? If they federate, I can follow people who post on Threads, but I get a chronological timeline I control and no ads. They make money on ads. So why should they federate? To "slurp up everything"? They already have much more than Mastodon and the rest of the fediverse have. The thing you get from federation is more granular social graph data than you can obtain from public scraping. Not just "X liked this post" but also "when did X like this post?" Meta specializes in social graph analysis. More data leads to more insights, which leads to more targeting for advertisements in places they do control. There's the direct profitability angle. Additionally, it will make Meta's properties feel more "complete" or connected to the rest of the world (despite many people's distaste for Meta as a company and their business practices). Being able to stay in touch with Meta objectors through ActivityPub will lead to more social pressure (or inertia, depending on your perspective) to stay locked into Meta properties for their incumbent users. They only stand to gain from this plan. There is a cost, of course: Some CPU is expended that doesn't include adverts. But they've probably done the math and concluded that they can accept that hit and still profit.

not2b 3y ago
But if Tumblr does the same, they're just as complete. And public scraping can approximate "when did X like this post?" by just running it frequently. And you haven't mentioned the moderation costs to Meta. They'd have to decide who to federate with, which instances to block, which accounts to block.
- soatok 3y ago
  > And you haven't mentioned the moderation costs to Meta. What about my comment obligates me, in any way, to mention that? It seems like an odd thing to demand. What's going to happen is: the far-right pockets are ad-unfriendly (ad-adverse?), so they're out. But the far-left instances are anti-corporate, so they'll block Meta. What remains are heavily skewed towards the statist democrat types who are generally civil and well-mannered. I wouldn't expect the moderation burden to be too heavy from that crowd. The only significant moderation cost will be if Zucc abandons all sense and federates with instances that allow right-wing extremists. That would be an expensive blunder. (Still stupidly rate-limited on my main account, so have to reply from this one. Dang it.)

pwdisswordfishc 3y ago

> Threads now has 100 million accounts Instagram has 100 million accounts.

rsynnott 3y ago
Instagram has 2.3 billion accounts.