Chris TrottierDec 21, 2022

BIG NEWS: Pawoo.net, the world's 2nd biggest Mastodon instance, has just been acquired.

The entity acquiring them is the Mask Group, a business that also runs mstdn.jp and mastodon.cloud. They are also active in the so-called "Web 3.0" space.

If you haven't heard of pawoo.net, it's because many instances have de-federated from it.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mask-network-acquires-pawoo-net-070000858.html

Yahooist Teil der Yahoo Markenfamilie

Show threadChris TrottierDec 21, 2022

Like it or not, it should no longer be assumed that "volunteers" are running your instances.

The Mask Group, which now runs three large instances "has raised over US$50 million from private and institutional backers"—their words not mine.

Show threadChris TrottierDec 21, 2022

There's going to be a massive land grab of all these big instances. There will be lots of merging and acquiring too.

My advice is that you all become *very* aware of who owns your instance and why.

Get to know your admins—make sure their values align with your own.

If you don't want to put your social media life in the hands of strangers, then self-host your own instance.

Show threadChris TrottierDec 21, 2022

To everyone using mastodon.cloud and mstdn.jp: remember, you're not locked into those instances.

If you want, you can migrate elsewhere.

This is not Twitter—you have a choice regarding where your home will be on the Fediverse.

Show threadChris TrottierDec 21, 2022

A warning: there's going to be a concerted effort to re-centralize the Fediverse.

As we've just seen with the acquisition of pawoo.net, that's already happening.

What are you going to do to thwart this trend?

Show threadMichael Gisiger 
@atomicpoet As much as I agree w/ you, such an effort will fail. We can all vote w/ our feet by walking away to other instances. And if such 're-centralized' instances get blocked, they lose the momentum of network effect fairly fast.
Dec 21, 2022 at 9:30amWeb
Show threadChris TrottierDec 21, 2022
@gisiger Yes, that's one failsafe mechanism for the Fediverse. However, people need to care enough about de-centralization.
Show threadCaleb FarukiDec 21, 2022

@atomicpoet @gisiger if you want people to care, you have to make it easy for them to discover.

My favorite idea is forming consortia of Mastodon admins with similar values to actively de-federate bad instances.

Show threadJohn Mark OckerbloomDec 21, 2022
@atomicpoet @gisiger I'd say that for most, ease of communication is higher priority than decentralization. If the Fediverse continues to scale up, I fully expect that some dominant, but not exclusive, commercial sites that provide an attractive user experience will emerge, just as happened with email. Other instances can respond to that in various ways, but I don't expect that defederating them on principle would work any better than refusing to exchange email with AOL or gmail would have.
Show threadZiptieZoeDec 21, 2022
@JMarkOckerbloom @atomicpoet @gisiger
I chose aus.social purely for the ethics of it. I reckon rather a few ppl are keen to only support that which is independent & community-centred
Show threadJohn Mark OckerbloomDec 21, 2022

@ZiptieZoe @atomicpoet @gisiger I agree many will, just as a number of people choose indie email services, often for ethical or privacy reasons. Though those email services generally keep exchanging email with the big providers, who serve the majority of email users and are cheaper & easier to use for many than most indie email services.

Any instance can of course refuse to federate with any other. But it'll be a very different experience on narrowly federating instances than on broad ones.

Show threadJamesDec 21, 2022
@atomicpoet @gisiger there will be some sort of attempt at “embrace and extend”…
Show threadMichael Gisiger Dec 21, 2022
@keepof4worlds @atomicpoet Isn't there always someone trying to do that?
Show threadJamesDec 21, 2022
@gisiger @atomicpoet oh yes - especially predators at the edge of the OSS firelight
Show threadMazal ​Dec 21, 2022

@atomicpoet @gisiger also what Chris is doing is promoting situational awareness—which is key.

#fediverse #bigsocial

Show threadTessa 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 21, 2022
@gisiger @atomicpoet Maybe? But I bet the majority of people don't care about centralization at all and can't be bothered to move. And if there are enough people on centralized instances, blocking them won't matter, it will isolate us more than them.
Show threadTessa 🏳️‍⚧️Dec 21, 2022
@gisiger @atomicpoet Regardless, though, the vast majority of my friends and connections on Mastodon are on small servers and I will happily stay here with them.
Show threadMichael Gisiger Dec 21, 2022
@tessa @atomicpoet Well, there's one point I always make about social media: most people (i.e. the casual users) aren't actively looking for reach or fame or whatever. They're happy if they find their people, their community. They don't care about decentralizatrion or centralization. They simply go where their tribe is. But those people aren't the people who voice their concerns--they simply don't care. I don't blame them.
Show threadErik SDec 21, 2022
@gisiger @atomicpoet Defederating from large/consolidated instances solely because of their size/trajectory sounds self-marginalizing.