4 ms·

Thread users are today's aol users. Better to keep them out of areas where real conversations happen

by ipaddr 3y ago

dbfx 3y ago
Then I fail to see the issue since "real conversations" aren't happening on the fediverse either.
- nemo44x 3y ago
  There's dozens of real conversations happening. Dozens!
- treyd 3y ago
  What do you mean by this? There's over a million active users including quite a few high profile people like Cory Doctorow.
turnsout 3y ago
You are 100% right that Threads users are today's AOL users, and that's a good thing. If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
- nobody9999 3y ago
  > If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. Please define "thrive" in this context. Do you mean DAU/MAUs? I know, perhaps, a couple hundred people and respect the opinions/ideas of perhaps a few dozen others I don't know. Those are the only people I care about interacting with and I can interact with them just fine without Meta's "offerings." AFAICT, ActivityPub is thriving. It has an active user base, is under active development and doesn't "productize" its users. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I just don't understand how you're defining "thrive" in this context.
  - turnsout 3y ago
    ActivityPub is doing fine, but the more people who are using it, the better. We saw this with the most recent migration from Twitter to Mastodon about 6 months ago. We got more users, and that brought more developers, bug fixes, enhancements, and new ActivityPub projects.
    - nobody9999 3y ago
      >ActivityPub is doing fine, but the more people who are using it, the better. We saw this with the most recent migration from Twitter to Mastodon about 6 months ago. We got more users, and that brought more developers, bug fixes, enhancements, and new ActivityPub projects. You won't get any argument about that from me. That said, what's needed is more instances, not a single instance with a hundred million users. What's more, how likely is it that the Meta dev folks will want to share bug fixes/enhancements/etc? And even if they did, how many of them are there? I'd rather see 100 new Fediverse instances of a wide variety, with a bunch of different folks contributing than a Meta monoculture. That's not to say I object to Threads. AP is open source. Meta can use/not use federate/not federate the software as they choose. And if they actually do federate and bring new devs and instances along with them, that's great! I just don't think we need Meta for AP to thrive. It's been doing just fine so far, and will continue to do so with or without Meta.
      - turnsout 3y ago
        Yeah, I wouldn’t count on Meta contributing directly. I guess what I mean is, out of those 100M users, some will be programmers who get jazzed about ActivityPub after using Threads, and they’ll start up hobby projects or contribute to existing projects like Mastodon or Pixelfed. I’m 100% with you that more diversity is needed, but if Threads actually federates, I’m optimistic that it will help feed the broader ecosystem.

Thread users are today's aol users. Better to keep them out of areas where real conversations happen

by ipaddr 3y ago

Thread users are today's aol users. Better to keep them out of areas where real conversations happen

dbfx 3y ago

Then I fail to see the issue since "real conversations" aren't happening on the fediverse either.

nemo44x 3y ago
There's dozens of real conversations happening. Dozens!
treyd 3y ago
What do you mean by this? There's over a million active users including quite a few high profile people like Cory Doctorow.

turnsout 3y ago

You are 100% right that Threads users are today's AOL users, and that's a good thing. If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

nobody9999 3y ago
> If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. Please define "thrive" in this context. Do you mean DAU/MAUs? I know, perhaps, a couple hundred people and respect the opinions/ideas of perhaps a few dozen others I don't know. Those are the only people I care about interacting with and I can interact with them just fine without Meta's "offerings." AFAICT, ActivityPub is thriving. It has an active user base, is under active development and doesn't "productize" its users. I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I just don't understand how you're defining "thrive" in this context.
- turnsout 3y ago
  ActivityPub is doing fine, but the more people who are using it, the better. We saw this with the most recent migration from Twitter to Mastodon about 6 months ago. We got more users, and that brought more developers, bug fixes, enhancements, and new ActivityPub projects.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >ActivityPub is doing fine, but the more people who are using it, the better. We saw this with the most recent migration from Twitter to Mastodon about 6 months ago. We got more users, and that brought more developers, bug fixes, enhancements, and new ActivityPub projects. You won't get any argument about that from me. That said, what's needed is more instances, not a single instance with a hundred million users. What's more, how likely is it that the Meta dev folks will want to share bug fixes/enhancements/etc? And even if they did, how many of them are there? I'd rather see 100 new Fediverse instances of a wide variety, with a bunch of different folks contributing than a Meta monoculture. That's not to say I object to Threads. AP is open source. Meta can use/not use federate/not federate the software as they choose. And if they actually do federate and bring new devs and instances along with them, that's great! I just don't think we need Meta for AP to thrive. It's been doing just fine so far, and will continue to do so with or without Meta.
    - turnsout 3y ago
      Yeah, I wouldn’t count on Meta contributing directly. I guess what I mean is, out of those 100M users, some will be programmers who get jazzed about ActivityPub after using Threads, and they’ll start up hobby projects or contribute to existing projects like Mastodon or Pixelfed. I’m 100% with you that more diversity is needed, but if Threads actually federates, I’m optimistic that it will help feed the broader ecosystem.