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It's less "Meta evil" and more, "We've been burned by 3E countless times." This just looks like the first E. The problem is that the incentives to engage in th

It's less "Meta evil" and more, "We've been burned by 3E countless times." This just looks like the first E. The problem is that the incentives to engage in the two remaining Es still exist, and given the same incentives, we can predict the same behavior. It's Econ101.

iteratethis 3y ago
As soon as Meta turns on federation for Threads, they are the largest Activitypub server, about 10 times larger than all of Mastodon combined. At the same time, Meta cannot stop non-Threads instances from organizing as they already do. So I don't see the threat, really.
- nocoolnametom 3y ago
  The problem comes with "Extend." "We've got this new awesome feature, and we asked nicely if it could be put into the ActivityPub docs but they turned us down/didn't act fast enough. So we're proud to announce MetaPub, a superset of ActivityPub that will still communicate with regular ActivityPub, but to get the best and latest features you'll have to implement MetaPub in your clients. Or just use Threads, where it's already present for all users!" Repeat until you gain enough influence that ActivityPub is seen as inferior. Then comes "Extinguish." Breaking changes to MetaPub reducing federation to only MetaPub clients or give up entirely and turn off federation anyways.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    This ignores the role of regulators e.g. EU. ActivityPub is the first glimpse at a future where social media networks are interoperable over a common standard similar to mail. And from recent history the period we are in is one in where governments are looking for open standards as a hedge against big tech. The idea that Meta would deliberately harm a standard, shut down competition and invite anti-competition investigations is far-fetched.
    - rusk 3y ago
      > similar to mail and Telecomms. Don’t forget Telecomms, an area where the EU hasn’t been shy about dipping it’s oar in.
  - tedunangst 3y ago
    And then we revert to the state where we don't federate with threads, which doesn't seem so different from not federating with them today. This is weird jealous break up logic. No, you didn't stop talking to me, I stopped talking to you!
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Can I ask how many 3E-ed products you've used in your lifetime?
apitman 3y ago
Embrace isn't the time to worry, Extend is, and then only conditionally. If they come up with sensible features, then maybe the standard should evolve. But if it starts becoming too complex to implement or gives too much power to Meta, then I'm ready to join you in raising the alarm.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  Just one quick question, can you point out an example where that worked?
  - apitman 3y ago
    HTTP. Many features have been added at the behest of big tech, but the core HTTP/1.1 protocol remains compatible with nearly all major software. Note that this is a counterpoint to web browser protocols (especially CSS and JS), which Google has managed to extend to the point where they are now nearly the only viable browser engine vendor. They don't need to extinguish it because they completely control it.

iteratethis 3y ago

As soon as Meta turns on federation for Threads, they are the largest Activitypub server, about 10 times larger than all of Mastodon combined. At the same time, Meta cannot stop non-Threads instances from organizing as they already do. So I don't see the threat, really.

nocoolnametom 3y ago
The problem comes with "Extend." "We've got this new awesome feature, and we asked nicely if it could be put into the ActivityPub docs but they turned us down/didn't act fast enough. So we're proud to announce MetaPub, a superset of ActivityPub that will still communicate with regular ActivityPub, but to get the best and latest features you'll have to implement MetaPub in your clients. Or just use Threads, where it's already present for all users!" Repeat until you gain enough influence that ActivityPub is seen as inferior. Then comes "Extinguish." Breaking changes to MetaPub reducing federation to only MetaPub clients or give up entirely and turn off federation anyways.
- threeseed 3y ago
  This ignores the role of regulators e.g. EU. ActivityPub is the first glimpse at a future where social media networks are interoperable over a common standard similar to mail. And from recent history the period we are in is one in where governments are looking for open standards as a hedge against big tech. The idea that Meta would deliberately harm a standard, shut down competition and invite anti-competition investigations is far-fetched.
  - rusk 3y ago
    > similar to mail and Telecomms. Don’t forget Telecomms, an area where the EU hasn’t been shy about dipping it’s oar in.
- tedunangst 3y ago
  And then we revert to the state where we don't federate with threads, which doesn't seem so different from not federating with them today. This is weird jealous break up logic. No, you didn't stop talking to me, I stopped talking to you!
kelseyfrog 3y ago
Can I ask how many 3E-ed products you've used in your lifetime?

apitman 3y ago

Embrace isn't the time to worry, Extend is, and then only conditionally. If they come up with sensible features, then maybe the standard should evolve. But if it starts becoming too complex to implement or gives too much power to Meta, then I'm ready to join you in raising the alarm.

kelseyfrog 3y ago
Just one quick question, can you point out an example where that worked?
- apitman 3y ago
  HTTP. Many features have been added at the behest of big tech, but the core HTTP/1.1 protocol remains compatible with nearly all major software. Note that this is a counterpoint to web browser protocols (especially CSS and JS), which Google has managed to extend to the point where they are now nearly the only viable browser engine vendor. They don't need to extinguish it because they completely control it.