I am actually looking forward to threads taking off. I, as a mastodon user, will be able to follow my friends, celebrities, artists and interact with them when federation is activated. It is hard to get friends on to mastodon. The software is great and is better than Twitter, but the people are not on Mastodon but on Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Now, I know platforms by Meta (Facebook) are terrible and spy and leech out pretty much all the data from users. I am also aware that Meta has some hidden agenda behind the launch of threads. Yes, I also read about EEE(Embrace, Extend and Extinguish). Even if Threads decides to drop federation/activitypub, I don’t think the fediverse will be harmed. I quote the founder of Mastodon
There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
I think many instance admins are all ready to defederate with threads. It just doesn’t feel right. Imo, we should welcome users from threads and see how it goes.
What are your thoughts?
will be able to follow my friends, celebrities, artists and interact with them when federation is activated
Yea and then they’ll either defederate, or purposefuly break some interoperability functions. But since “everyone” will be on Threads anyway, you’ll just move there too.
It’s happened before even with Meta itself. Their messenger was xmpp compatible. Oculus didn’t need a fucking Facebook account.
You can say that everything will just get back to how it’s now, but it won’t. Right now, Fediverse has momentum. Twitter and Reddit are imploding. People have reason to pay attention, and potentially move or expand their online presence here.
Once Threads has a billion users and they cut the rest off, who will care about some tiny competitor? How many Instagram alternatives are you aware of?
Imo, we should welcome users from threads and see how it goes.
People are welcome. Meta isn’t.
I don’t know why it’s so controversial to keep cancer away in the first place, and not wait until it spreads and kill you.
I think you’d let a polar bear into your house to see how it goes, given the chance.
The whole point of ActivityPub is so this kind of thing can happen, isn’t it?
It assumes everyone wants to play by the rules literally and spirit. Meta won’t do that.
I, as a mastodon user, will be able to follow my friends, celebrities, artists and interact with them when federation is activated
This is exactly what’s scary. You might wanna check out this blog post about Google and XMPP, which is another federated protocol. Google Talk used to support XMPP, to the point that so much of the XMPP user base were Google Talk users. Then, Google Talk started implementing Google Talk specific features that other XMPP clients did not support. Yes, it made Google Talk more feature rich, but it then made regular XMPP users out of the loop. Then, the final nail in the coffin was Google Talk dropping XMPP support. Suddenly everybody’s friends who were using XMPP to communicate just… went offline as far as GT users were concerned. Then of course, Google killed Google Talk. This is EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) in a nutshell, and any time corporate interests enter projects like this, you’re at risk of this happening.
Don’t get me wrong, the fediverse could use some upgrades, more resources, more users. But I just don’t trust Meta to have the fediverse’s best interests at heart in the way. They’re a corporation, one of the biggest in the world, and they’ll only ever care about what benefits Meta.
There is a whole lot of, “the leopards won’t eat MY face” in here.
I think it’s ingorantly optimistic to think meta hasn’t spent more money than you make in a lifetime on strategy alone to marginalize the rest of the fedi-verse in an attempt to increase profit and destroy competitors. If you think Mastodon can figh that on donations bless your heart.