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> If that's your complaint, why wasn't it doubly or triply so with the last corporate overlord? I'll interpret this to mean "If the problem is that Threads own

> If that's your complaint, why wasn't it doubly or triply so with the last corporate overlord? I'll interpret this to mean "If the problem is that Threads owns the majority of the userbase, why didn't you complain about Twitter owning the majority of the userbase?" I'll reply to that as: Mastodon users did. That's why they used Mastodon in the first place, because they felt too much power was controlled in a single entity, so they complained and moved. In terms of actions to take, what power was there with Twitter that Mastodon users did not exert? With Threads, Mastodon server owners have the power to defederate and block Threads trying to intermingle with their userbase. With Twitter, Mastodon users were the ones with the power to publicly disclose their Mastodon account and tell users to follow them on there. In each instance, Mastodon users are doing what they can to reduce corporate overlords from having power over as many people as possible. Even if Threads is more centralized because of other instances defederating with it, the overall reach of Meta is reduced.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago
The fact that Threads has a much larger userbase than Mastodon already means that they won't ever really feel threatened by it. The stated reasons why GChat and Facebook Messenger eventually defederated is that it was hard to keep scaling the platform while speaking XMPP, but the unstated reasons were that Messenger and GChat at the time were still very much niche technologies that were jockeying for marketshare in a crowded space. This time around Threads is already an order-of-magnitude larger than the existing Mastodon Fediverse. Moreover, now Meta has a diverse array of different social products, so there isn't as much pressure on any one product to succeed. If Threads ends up in a dominant position in the threaded-text social network world, that already nets them more users and more opportunities for ad revenue, which they can collect revenue aside their existing properties of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. On the other hand, interoperating with the Fediverse allows them to be opinionated about what kind of content they allow on their network (e.g. if you're posting from Threads, you can't post sexually explicit content) which can keep them advertiser friendly, while offering a relief valve for the loud minority that will want content disallowed by Meta's content policies. It's a win-win really.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

The fact that Threads has a much larger userbase than Mastodon already means that they won't ever really feel threatened by it. The stated reasons why GChat and Facebook Messenger eventually defederated is that it was hard to keep scaling the platform while speaking XMPP, but the unstated reasons were that Messenger and GChat at the time were still very much niche technologies that were jockeying for marketshare in a crowded space. This time around Threads is already an order-of-magnitude larger than the existing Mastodon Fediverse. Moreover, now Meta has a diverse array of different social products, so there isn't as much pressure on any one product to succeed. If Threads ends up in a dominant position in the threaded-text social network world, that already nets them more users and more opportunities for ad revenue, which they can collect revenue aside their existing properties of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. On the other hand, interoperating with the Fediverse allows them to be opinionated about what kind of content they allow on their network (e.g. if you're posting from Threads, you can't post sexually explicit content) which can keep them advertiser friendly, while offering a relief valve for the loud minority that will want content disallowed by Meta's content policies. It's a win-win really.