Mastodawn

Kornel Jun 19, 2023

@daringfireball Openness isn’t merely a protocol thing. It’s a delicate power balance.

When an entity larger than all other combined joins, it may become "too big to fail" and start dictating terms.

Gmail unilaterally dictates who can use SMTP. GitHub became the center of decentralised git. Systems tend to centralise.

Naman Jun 19, 2023

@kornel @daringfireball Yes, and the way to fight with GMail isn’t to “block” gmail from other email services. That hurts the other email services, not Gmail.

Meta’s threads doesn’t *need* ActivityPub. It has Instagram’s far larger network. Blocking them from your mastodon instance only hurts you, not them. It resigns Mastodon to forever being that weird niche rather than part of the mainstream.

Integrate and use it to make yourself mainstream!

@nmn @kornel @daringfireball Meta needs AP because the whole point of it is busting the protocol after taking on Twitter and BlueSky.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball Let’s say that’s true. It’s plausible that Meta wants to do the whole “embrace, extend, extinguish” thing.

Defederating them early won’t fix anything. Meta has a huge user base. Threads doesn’t need AP to “bootstrap” content.

It will either steal users from Mastodon, or it won’t. De-federating will incentive more users to switch away from Mastodon. Integrating will let them stay because of the integration.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball On the other hand. Meta could bring a HUGE amount of awareness about AP and Mastodon and it could lead to a large number of people joining, if only to check things out.

Some users might even like the experience on Mastodon better. Ivory, Mona, Ice Cubes, Elk are all great apps which are likely much nicer to use than whatever Threads will be.

Integration will mean they’ll still be able to connect with their friends

@nmn @kornel @daringfireball that's the same rhetoric that was used to welcome Facebook and Google federating their instant messaging platforms with XMPP. And we know how that ended. Are you looking for the same thing happening to ActivityPub?

Naman

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball Mobile killed xmpp not Google or Facebook.

If anything Gmail and Facebook kelp Xmpp alive a few extra years.

Bullshit. XMPP has developed extensions to make it mobile-ready, extensions that Google and Facebook *refused to implement*. Also XMPP is still “alive” in products like WhatsApp (is that mobile-ready enough for you?). But not as a federation protocol allowing people to connect across networks. Do you see the pattern here?

Georgimus Prime Jun 20, 2023

@oblomov @nmn @kornel @daringfireball Yes, there were definitely multiprotocol chat clients on Microsoft's PocketPC and Nokia's Symbian at the time, and lots of Java clients. XMPP Servers were also easy to set up and host compared to Mastodon & co.
I didn't understand why they fizzled out until I made sense of the "kiss of death" adoption by Google.

EDIT: a tpyo :)
EDIT: a tpyo :)

@georgeeyong @nmn @kornel @daringfireball

Google *and Facebook*. What's ridiculous about this whole thing is that the rhetoric being used now is *exactly the same* used at the time, and *the same frigging company* is trying to pull the *the same frigging trick*, and these guys actually believe it's going to go differently this time.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball It’s not about the technicality. XMPP died when the mobile-first chat apps like WhatsApp and iMessage came on the scene.

And you’re proving my point here. Being technically feasible doesn’t keep the protocol alive. When major products “implement” the open standard, that’s how it stays alive.

Meta is now choosing to implement the standard, and you’d rather AP die instead.

No, XMPP died when FB and Google decided to defederate instead of making it mobile-ready.

Meta is going to kill AP‌ by “choosing” it now and then dropping it a few years down the line, if we let them into the Federation.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball In that case XMPP was already dead. If FB and Google were the only ones keeping it alive.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball “Hey the big company cut off the open protocol making the protocol irrelevant.”

“Let’s cut them off preemptively, and preemptively make our protocol irrelevant”

That's the thing you're missing: cutting them off preemptively does not make the protocol irrelevant, it bolsters the Fediverse as a network without genocidal corporations in it. And yes, I'm aware you don't actually care about that.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball How does it bolster the Fediverse? It cuts off this community from the much larger community. Turning this community into a weird niche. This in turn means people will be incentivized to join Threads just to be connected to the people there.

This makes the Fediverse meaningless over time. Like MySpace.

As things stand now, the Fediverse is characterized by not having genocidal corporations in it. Keeping it this way does not cut it off from anything because there is nothing to cut off.
And yes, people who are fine with genocidal corporations will stick to Meta services, that's their prerogative, but anybody leaving the private silos will find their place here. This is how it grew so much from the Twitter and Reddit migrations.

You're missing the point again: what killed XMPP was the Google and Facebook rug pull, which is exactly what Meta will do with ActivityPub if we let it federate.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball Yes that implies that Google and Facebook *were* XMPP. If there was anything else that was relevant built on XMPP, it would survive with or without Google/FB.

No, they *became* XMPP the moment they were let into the federation, completely controlling the discourse about it by sheer size, which allowed them to kill it by simply dropping it.
Meta is aiming to do the same with ActivityPub. Currently the protocol is dominated by Mastodon, to the point that everybody talks about Mastodon rather than AP or the Fediverse. Meta federating means AP will be dominated by *them*, giving them the power to kill it by dropping it.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball We’re talking in circles. I’m tired of repeating the same arguments. I see your fears. I don’t deny them. I disagree with your solution. De-federating now is no different from the so called “rug pull”.

The only situation where your argument holds is for new corporate platforms built on AP where they’re dependent on AP for success today. But in those cases, you can predict who will be a bad actor in the future.

The thing is, you don't actually have any arguments. You just keep trying to deny processes that are well established in an attempt to downplay a very concrete risk, because ultimately you don't actually care about the protocol and are fine with giving power and control to genocidal corporations. That's your prerogative, but at least stop pretending that this is to ActivityPub's beneft.

@oblomov @kornel @daringfireball I’m just have my eyes open about how most people are. People don’t join a social network for it’s political ramifications. They join for other people. Cut that off and you’re hurting yourself. Being insular hurts you unless you have all the people.

(car '(potato lisper))Jun 20, 2023

@nmn @oblomov @kornel @daringfireball I use xmpp on daily bases for chat and video calls. No issues on mobile. Google and Facebook defederating after stilling most of users is what pushed xmpp to back. Later even the rest of protocols that could be used with xmpp thru bridges. Both companies used xmpp and openness to bootstrap their user base.

@potato_lisper @oblomov @kornel @daringfireball My point was not about the technical feasibility of XMPP on mobile. My point was that the new set of mobile chat apps like WhatsApp and iMessage are what killed XMPP, not Gmail and Facebook. They were late to the mobile messaging party.

@nmn @potato_lisper @kornel @daringfireball

Is this some kind of joke? Google and Facebook (the company, aka Meta now) killed XMPP by refusing to adopt the extensions that would have allowed its usage on mobile while keeping the federation, and you think *that* didn't kill the protocol?