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Embrace, Extend, Enforce (ƎƎƎ): A practical Strategy against potentially abusive Instances like Meta’s Threads
(fungiverse.wordpress.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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https://www.theverge.com/23990974/social-media-2023-fediverse-mastodon-threads-activitypub
In this article, The Verge is describing what they think may happen to the Fediverse in the next years: big time commercialization.
Now the current Fediverse can either try to adapt to this new stage and try to grow with it; or block it out entirely and stay small. These two factions are by some called "big" and "small fedi".
I'm a supporter of "big fedi", because I think people will just move to other instances that federate with the big ones if we don't. From my perspective, a big bull is charging right at us. We can either jump on it, ride it and try to taim it; or get trampled dead by it.
I disagree that those are the options. The fediverse is made up largely of people that are actively seeking alternatives to the very models of big commercial social networks. We have built and are growing this alternative in spite of the 'competition' from the commercial players. We don't need (or want) them. Facebook adopting the activity pub protocol does not mean we have to federate with them, and we should be beyond suspicious that they want to federate with us. No good can come of it.
The important thing for me is that the fediverse remains an alternative network, rather than simply an alternative 'client' for Facebook.
Ok, but if you do this, when comes the time when you try to grow the Fediverse again? Currently, the Fediverse has about 2M users, which are mostly on Mastodon. With the entry of Threads, this percentage will decrease over time. It will weaken or position further. Probably, there will be some companies that will try to compete with threads and if we are lucky, they are nice to us. But on paper, our percentage and our influence will decrease further. When is the point when you turn the switch to growth and claim room in the market?
So no, I don't see how it could work. I think we are currently in the best position that we will have in the next years and we should use it to our advantage.
Its pretty clear what they want: they see an emerging market and they want to claim and dominate it like they always do and they want to use us for their growth and they will use that growth for potentially bad things. That's all to be expected. But as long as they federate nicely with us, we should federate with them too. People will start asking themselves why some users have different domains and when important public figures start posting from the fediverse, word will get around. People thrive for freedom. I would go as far as saying that we have a responsibility here: our presence on Threads shows people the alternative to walled gardens.
And once important public figures have migrated in the Fediverse, temporary defederation will hurt Meta much more. Meta hugely underestimating what happens if the Left has pointed out the Fediverse as their new frontier.
How can all of that happen by just defederating? For me its a form of casting away responsibility.
We can either chose to drive and contribute to the change, or hide away from it and eventually get rolled over.