Aral BalkanJun 20, 2023

It’s very interesting to see who in the fediverse is falling in line behind Silicon Valley and Big Tech and who is not.

And no, we can’t all just get along.

Big Tech is the antithesis of the cooperative and humanitarian values of federation and decentralisation. You can either be an apologist for surveillance capitalists or support the nascent ethical alternatives to their toxic business model that’s detrimental to human rights and democracy.

Pick a side. History will remember your choice.

Show threadJames Harris - Find my bridged Bluesky accountJun 20, 2023
@aral this feels like a pretty awkward stance. You have a platform that has grown significantly in the last year due to Twitter’s implosion. Billions of people use Meta products (Facebook/Instagram/Messenger/Whatsapp). I don’t feel like the Mastodon community is wholly comprised of big tech haters and FOSS advocates like it once was. I don’t want Meta to come here, but at the same time “free and open” swings both ways, you can’t stop them from adopting protocols, and that was by design of FOSS
Show threadAral BalkanJun 20, 2023

@jbwharris You can’t stop them from adopting protocols, true.

That doesn’t mean you have to lay down a red carpet for them either.

Social pressure works.

The design of ActivityPub, Mastodon, etc., is compatible with how Big Tech scales. So there’s nothing technically stopping them from centralising/capturing it (in the same way the web, email, XMPP has been centralised and captured—so not entirely, of course—but for all intents and purposes insofar as the mainstream is concerned).

Show threadChaseJun 20, 2023

@aral @jbwharris but they captured their respective markets because, at the time, they offered a more compelling product than what was currently available. That's not to say they didn't eventually leverage their positions, but search before Google was a chore.

I don't agree with the scorched earth policy — if people want openness to be the standard, they need to need to actually contribute to the projects. Meta doesn't need Mastodon, they already have the cash and audience.

Show threadJames Harris - Find my bridged Bluesky account
@caramelbeard @aral I think Meta needs something more than you'd think. They have Facebook, but know that's for oldsters. They have Instagram, but that's barely a social network in a tangible sense of where modern discourse occurs. They pivoted to VR and nobody cared. Twitter always existed at the axis of being where newsworthy dialogue occurred. They're desperate to occupy that vacuum if Twitter capitulates and have wanted into that space for a long time.
Jun 20, 2023 at 4:04pmWeb
Show threadJames Harris - Find my bridged Bluesky accountJun 20, 2023
@caramelbeard @aral The Fediverse is definitely at an awkward crossroads. Meta has products that people I know actually use. My friends and family would probably be much more keen to try something new from Meta than they ever would be to try Mastodon. I'm 8 months on Mastodon and find there's very few people I actually know using the platform anymore. Sure there's growth, but is it actually your friends and family, the people you probably want to connect with on a social network? Probably not.
Show threadChaseJun 20, 2023

@jbwharris @aral agreed. Mastodon feels like a open project that actually has a chance (does anybody remember diaspora??)

Meta certainly doesn't have that cache with younger audiences anymore but can still throw their weight around. I want federated spaces to win because they’re the superior experience and not because we raised our walls higher.