Chris Trottier😮
Wait. People are saying Meta's decentralized app will be powered by #ActivityPub, and will interoperate with Mastodon.
On top of it, it will be Instagram-branded.
Surprising. But again, I'll believe it when I see it.
Wow. We're really going to see a Fediverse dogpile soon.
It doesn't matter if Meta never does this decentralized social network and integrates ActivityPub.
The point is enough developers will *think* Meta will do this -- and this is going to cause an avalanche of development.
Not all these developers will believe in decentralization. They'll be opportunists through and through.
I'm no fool. Meta is definitely going to try to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" if they actually follow through on a decentralized social network.
In my view, they're no different from Cloudflare.
But you know what we just caused them to do? Acknowledge the Fediverse.
Think about that.
Moshe Eshel@atomicpoet I don't believe you can compare Meta to Cloudflare, at least not in this case.
1. It's all rumors right now, they haven't done anything yet.
2. Cloudflare released an activityPub implementation, to me it looked more like a publicity stunt, to show the capabilities of their platform (they do this a *LOT*), it never goes beyond a demo really, there is no offering beyond hosting here, they aren't really involved in the technology itself.
Meta is a different story, they actively went after online forums, and won, they killed many existing communities, and caused many others to not even consider an independent platform - just open a FB group.
And the Fediverse is right on that track, I wouldn't say I'm scared, but I'm definitely worried.
1. It's all rumors right now, they haven't done anything yet.
2. Cloudflare released an activityPub implementation, to me it looked more like a publicity stunt, to show the capabilities of their platform (they do this a *LOT*), it never goes beyond a demo really, there is no offering beyond hosting here, they aren't really involved in the technology itself.
Meta is a different story, they actively went after online forums, and won, they killed many existing communities, and caused many others to not even consider an independent platform - just open a FB group.
And the Fediverse is right on that track, I wouldn't say I'm scared, but I'm definitely worried.
PJ "Vote Green" CoffeyHmm... what's the actual mechanics of a zerg rush by meta?
Make a tonne of "free" servers with professional mods supported by ads and a slick user interface, call it "Tooter".
Buy up all free Web hosting to drive up costs?
Legal lobbying to make Mastodon or running a non corporate server illegal?
They'd need sufficient servers, sufficiently well moderated to not cause instant defederation.
Then they'd need to keep that up whilst people are either blocked or jump ship to Mastodon communities.
They can attempt to take the code private and proprietary I suppose, but that would require admins to swallow a known poison pill.
Their whole model relies on exchanging a pleasant service for ad exposure. Maybe they'd want people to flee their service and overload existing servers? Media campaign about "snobby elitist Mastodon"? /T
@Homebrewandhacking @atomicpoet
As I wrote, they know the work.
The Fediverse has more going for it than the balkanized online forums had, but still exploitable by a mega power like Meta.
I can outline one scenario, it's not the only one, but it tracks to my mind.
Think, a Mastodon like app, but with FB login, that constantly adds more features, they might even contribute back for positive publicity, join the board so to speak.
People will start signing up and using just like any other new app, but the community (being open source and requiring some coordination and agreement) will be hard pressed to keep up. The masses will flock to the shiny new thing, admins on many instances will be burdened by operations and migrate to the shiny new (effortless) hosting.
Holdouts in the community will be pressured to connect to the new network, due to sheer numbers alone.
At that point Meta is a major power in the Fediverse.
Once they feel secure, they can start the actual campaign (remember, until now they are essentially "just" another host on the network), actively partitioning out communities, adding features that aren't supported, stopping interoperability. Splitting the network into Meta affiliated and not, it goes on...
It's not even really hard for them, seeing that the network isn't very homogeneous to begin with, and all the past horrors people experienced.
Remember that most people don't care about openness, they come to where everyone else is going.
@mosheeshel Meta isn't the only company with experience building social networks. For example, @blaine actually coded Twitter.
@atomicpoet @blaine
Hey, we're not arguing 😎
I'm just outlining a possible strategy they might adopt, I'm not saying it's inevitable.
The space is a lot more mature, so it will not be easy for them, but it will be easier than for us (I'm definitely with us, not them).
The point is they have the capabilities and the money to attempt this, and maybe even the will. We need to be strong.
Or in other words,
An open system is an invitation for bad actors to try and abuse it.
It can be systematic abuse (like * corp trying to take over) or sporadic abuse like spammers and hackers.
We need to be vigilant and find ways to protect our system.
@mosheeshel @atomicpoet @blaine
Vigilance is needed. I am skeptical that open source will lose out in terms of QoL to a corporate newcomer _that isn't already dominant in the field_.
If Meta goes that route, they'll target large institutions with their app which have ready userbases and a (perceived) lack of in-house know-how.
So the key weaknesses are:
Single developer pace of app
Lack of reach to organisations
@Homebrewandhacking @atomicpoet @blaine
When you phrase it like that...
It's not a one sided street, the power of open source (really the people!), is exactly that we are distributed and not beholden to a single view/strategy/decision maker
That is a major strength in terms of innovation.
Also the distributed nature of the Fediverse is such that no one must convince everyone for every decision, different apps can go different ways, split, merge back, and everyone can benefit and use anyone's innovation.
However, in this distributed universe, it is also *much harder* to concentrate on a single direction and much waste of effort in duplication and dead ends. That's the corporation's sweet spot (although they are far from perfect of course)
The failure point of the network are the protocol and partitions - we need to make these better, more robust, so that when they come for us - our immune system is more equipped to handle it.
(I'm clearly not a developer, but I try to educate myself about technology because that seems sensible.)
But that's not strictly true of Mastodon, AIUI. It all goes through one dev and if they don't like it, it doesn't get done.
If MS didn't have Windows on every computer thus creating an artifical monopoly it would have struggled to achieve that.
Meta isn't exactly a byword for good design right now.
@Homebrewandhacking @atomicpoet @blaine
Mastodon is only one application in the Fediverse, there are others. At any point Mastodon dev can add more people or abandon, or someone can fork the project - it's open source, so not a problem.
ActivityPub is a protocol, making changes to it requires agreement and changes across the Fediverse to make the change relevant - splits here are an issue, but not insurmountable.
Microsoft first had to succeed in putting windows on all desktops, they did it through some serious innovation and smartness - including a whole ecosystem of ISVs (independent software developers), who essentially committed to the Microsoft platform and added tons! Of value to it and to themselves (and Microsoft are continuing to this day to support and promote these people and companies in many ways making this community one of the most robust ones), lots of Microsoft hate is justified but wow, it's an amazing company in regards to interoperability, backward compatibility and support of its partners.
Meta is nowhere close to Microsoft, never was, they are a big mismanaged corporation with one idea, with lots of related acquisitions, that it never managed to integrate into a coherent offering (except the ad part after a long struggle, and not completely), and yet, they are a formidable threat (think, offering that single Mastodon dev more money than he can imagine...)
The Fediverse is only as strong as the network, but it's a strong network I hope with some very serious individuals in major strong points.
I have high hopes.
Thanks. I've only been here since November but it's very nice and I like a lot of the culture and pleasant and informative conversations. 😌
Like this one! 😀
@Homebrewandhacking no worries, I'm always available if you want someone to spew text at you 😇
Or you can ask chatGPT 😂
Or you can ask chatGPT 😂
Dreampod@Homebrewandhacking @mosheeshel @atomicpoet
They don't need to make running a non-corporate server illegal just make the hassles of complying with the law too high and too costly for instances that don't have scale and corporate backing.
The first thing they'd want to get rid of is Section 230 so lawsuits over users posts can't be easily dismissed by instances as targeting the inappropriate party. With the current bipartisan hate against Section 230 it might just happen.
They don't need to make running a non-corporate server illegal just make the hassles of complying with the law too high and too costly for instances that don't have scale and corporate backing.
The first thing they'd want to get rid of is Section 230 so lawsuits over users posts can't be easily dismissed by instances as targeting the inappropriate party. With the current bipartisan hate against Section 230 it might just happen.