FediTips has moved!Apr 25, 2023

I don't think people are realising the danger the Fediverse is in.

The only thing stopping corporations and VCs taking over this place is that the Fediverse is spread out on many different servers, which makes it very difficult to purchase.

If most of the Fediverse ends up on mastodon.social, which is now a strong possibility, there will be nothing to stop most of it being sold to Musk or Zuckerberg or whoever.

The bigger mastodon.social becomes, the more likely a buyout is to happen.

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Show threadFediTips has moved!Apr 25, 2023

Here's what Eugen Rochko's Mastodon gGmbH organisation now controls:

-The Mastodon server software & API (though the current version is FOSS)
-The mastodon.social server, which has 1 in 7 of all Fediverse users
-The official Mastodon apps, now telling people to just sign up on mastodon.social
-The official website at joinmastodon.org
-The trademark for the word "mastodon", which lets them dictate terms to any server which uses it

This is a tempting package for any potential buyers.

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Show threadFediTips has moved!Apr 25, 2023

The trademark alone gives Mastodon gGmbH huge power, it lets them tell any server using the word "mastodon" in its domain name what software or forks it can use.

And it's getting worse. Mastodon gGmbH is now making official apps which direct people to sign up on mastodon.social instead of a random trusted server or choice of trusted servers.

The more people sign up on mastodon.social, the more tempting Mastodon gGmbH becomes as a takeover target.

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Show threadFediTips has moved!Apr 25, 2023

With all that in mind, here's a suggestion:

➡️ *IF* mastodon.social becomes more than 50% of the Fediverse, either by total users or monthly active users, the rest of us should defederate it.

Sticking with mastodon.social because "that's where the people are" is pointless. Centralised growth will simply cause the governance problems we've seen on Twitter and Facebook to be replicated on here.

Growth has to be decentralised in order to protect the independence of all Fedi servers.

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Show threadDon Whiteside
@feditips ”We had to burn down the village to save it” never goes out of vogue, huh?
Apr 25, 2023 at 4:43pmWeb
Show threadsalaruaApr 25, 2023
@donw mastodon.social isn't the whole village. and hopefully it will never be. it's freakishly large, but it won't kill the entirety of the Fediverse if there was a mass defederation from it
Show threadRyan HamelApr 25, 2023
@salarua @donw It would cause a number of "islands" to appear between instances due to them removing mastondon.social, and another set of instances who defederate others for defederating mastodon.social. It would effectively create random blackholes in a decentralized network, because of a centralized admin of instances decision.
Show threadDon WhitesideApr 25, 2023
@mrhamel @salarua I don’t think I would hazard to guess exactly what would happen. But it certainly feels like saying “I am concerned that this thing would lead to a bad situation” and then deciding to react by guaranteeing a bad situation.
Show threadsalaruaApr 25, 2023
@mrhamel @donw mastodon.social isn't the crux of the Fediverse. if mastodon.social were to suddenly disappear, nothing would change, because instances, if they don't federate directly with each other, share *dozens* of other federated instances in common
Show threadSteven CapobiancoApr 25, 2023
@donw @feditips this feels more like “we left our burning village, so we’re saving it by burning your village down”
Show threadDon WhitesideApr 25, 2023
@stevencworlds or maybe "we're worried about how vulnerable to flame you've made the village so we're gonna set a whole lot of fires.” It's not a perfect metaphor but it seemed like an appropriate quip to someone suggesting that the solution to a server becoming too big a percentage of the network is to make it an even bigger percentage of the network.
Show threadAdeptVeritatisApr 25, 2023

@donw @feditips

We have to kick out the troublemakers.
Every single time they try to impose their rules on us.

Because there will always people like you, who blame us for starting the fire.

Show threadMETADESTROYER !! (He/Him)Apr 25, 2023
@donw @feditips wow, such absolutely bizzare equation youre trying to set here.