The anti-Meta #Fedipact can only achieve one thing: make sure that #ActivityPub loses to the Bluesky protocol. Is that what people here want?
As an #openweb advocate, I don't.
Meta joining the Fediverse is like AOL joining the internet: something that will bring a mass amount of people in, create some friction, but ultimately make the net better as more people federating on #Mastodon, #kbin, #lemmy, #pixelfed and other parts of the Fediverse make open protocols that much stronger.
@skua @hughster It's like Blinken going to China: it's not that the US and China are going to be friend but they want to make sure they don't slide into war.
Meta will federate. And because of its size, it (and other large players) will have an impact on what standard gets adopted by billions of people.
If you're willing to kill the Fediverse because of that, that's your prerogative but I'm not going to agree with you.
I welcome anyone looking to make the net more open.
And it's not like it's hard to keep away from Meta either: just defederate from them, even fork the software to break from any ActivityPub changes they inspire that one doesn't like, and create ones own parallel MetaFreeVerse.
But one should do that in the full understanding that one is going to be left with dramatically fewer people to talk to by doing that, whereas the remaining bulk of the Fedi is going to have potentially millions more people added to it to talk to.
If the Fediverse depends on linking with a company associated with genocide and torture for its survival then it's better the Fediverse dies so that a non-genocidal-verse can sprout and replace it.
I think it's rather important how humans treat each other.
And Facebook / Meta has repeatedly demonstrated contrary standards.
@skua Are you using the web? Are you using the internet? They are built on protocols that are also used by bad actors. Should you stop using them for that reason?
Because that's the argument you're making about the Fediverse.
Protocols (and #activitypub is a protocol) don't care about politics. They just carry.
An open protocol will carry data for people you disagree with.
If you inject politics (of any kind) into a protocol, then it's no longer open.
yup, no way they just want to take control
"Dracula realizes I'm on to him, sees I'm schmeared in aoli. There's no reason to NOT invite him in."
@TNLNYC AOL joining the internet is arguably one of the major steps to ruining it, and turning it into a commercialized wasteland, far away from any dreams of what it was supposed to be.
Now, its an ad delivery service.
@ubergeek but back then it was the training wheels that allowed millions to get online at a time when it was hard to do so.
It may be a shell of its former self but it did serve a purpose.
@ubergeek Most businesses, at the time, didn't have internet access. Once you got out of Uni, you had to find an ISP and figure out Unix commands for a text-based version. If you wanted the web, it was a question of figuring out TCP/IP, logging in, maybe a SLIP link, and drivers that worked between your modem and your computer.
AOL was one diskette and you were on. The commercial internet existed. It just wasn't very popular. When it became popular, all kinds of new things became possible.
@ubergeek More newspapers, magazines, etc... started publishing online.
E-commerce became possible.
People who had web sites could now reach new audiences.
Email, chat, booking travel online, all became possible.
... and if it hadn't been for AOL joining, all this stuff would have remained behind walled gardens.
AOL joined the net and the net ate AOL.
@TNLNYC you covered what I said: the conversion of a free source of information, knowledge, and communication was commercialized.
But hey, it got Donald Trump elected, so that's a win, amitite? And we got 4chan, and The Daily Stormer from the deal.
I 'member when that shit would get your internet access revoked.
@TNLNYC wonder why the internet was far less commercial?
Because prior to AOL, it was actively fought.
@TNLNYC I wasn't installing them for businesses...
Which still didn't get them on the internet, because prior to AOL, commercialization was actively fought.
@ubergeek How did Internet World get started if that was the case?
How did Hotwired sell ad banners?
Those moves were all welcomed at the time. There were some (*cough* Stallman *cough*) who disagreed but there was also a large movement to figure out how to make this work.
@TNLNYC Netscape's communicator suite was free to download.
Nobody said you couldn't sell software or distribute freeware and shareware...
What didn't exist was a 24x7 spy system monitoring everything you do.
@TNLNYC that said, all you stated wasn't required. Freenets were all over the place. You needed a modem, and a terminal emulator (free with most OSes of the era).
If you wanted to make a business out of it, you needed more.
@ubergeek At the time, there were about 6M NYCer. Most didn't have a computer at home. Even fewer had modems.
Now, the homeless person on the street can connect to the internet. You're telling me this is worse than it was?
@TNLNYC the homeless person can get on the internet now, and get delivered ads non stop.
Yes, I see an issue with that.
@TNLNYC ok, I fail to see an issue with this then?
I do, however see the problems with an internet turned into an ad delivery service, and a platform that allows fascists to propagate their views, because it makes someone more money.
@ubergeek On the ad model, it's a choice. I covered that 14 years ago ( https://tnl.net/2009/09/25/the-three-dimensions-of-media/ )
As far as platform for fascists, they use to limit themselves to the punk and heavy metal forums but they were there in the 80s and 90s internet, sadly.
@TNLNYC even the punk and metal forums kicked their asses to the curb, until profit became a motive.
Then, it gets eyes, clicks, and makes money.
Oh wait, that sounds like ads.
That said, and instance serving an ad gets 100% blocked by me.
@TNLNYC Seems to me that if Meta does join the fediverse then a lot of other big orgs might too, which would be great because then no one of them - not even Meta - would be big enough to control it. Isn't that what federation is supposed to be about? Or do some people actually prefer to be a bit of an exclusive club, competing with all of the other exclusive clubs?
That was a rhetorical question BTW. Pretty obvious what the answer is.
@TNLNYC Here is the thing.
The Fediverse was not fixated with growth before the Twitter meltdown.
Mastodon had what? 90 000 users, and were chugging along fine, with no plans for world domination.
The Fediverse will not "lose", because it was never in it to "win". Ever.
@WhyNotZoidberg The win is not growth. The win is the ability to support different types of players from all walks of life and all opinion.
HTTP, HTML, CSS, JS, etc.. don't care about political persuasion. Why should ActivityPub ?
@TNLNYC It does not.
They are free to implement it. And I am free to block them.
Just like I block say all ads, because I don't like ads. although the ads use the same protocol as other things on my web page.
The protocol is a red herring. Facebook is blocked because it is Facebook. Not because they use a specific protocol.
Also, no, all opinions are not valid, btw.
@TNLNYC "Meta joining the Fediverse is like AOL joining the internet"
Maybe. Or maybe it's like Microsoft joining the World Wide Web.
Microsoft's strategy (which worked) was Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
First, they embraced the Web, and made it easy for their users to get online. Very soon, Internet Explorer was the most used web browser.
Next they extended the Web, taking open protocols and adding proprietary extensions. Microsoft added HTML tags that only worked in IE, or changed the way tags worked so sites only looked right in IE. They replaced cross-platform Java with ActiveX, which only worked on IE and Windows.
Finally, they tried to extinguish their competition.
This is when the US government finally stepped in. They sued Microsoft (Bill Gates lied on the witness stand), and won. But, when George Bush Jr. took office the government abruptly settled and Microsoft effectively escaped any real punishment.
So yeah, let Meta join, but be wary.
Fully agree on being wary.
But note that the web survived Microsoft and their own control of the web wasn't undone as much by government as it was by a product that was thought superior (Google Chrome vs. IE)
Open protocols (HTML and HTTP) ensured that none of them got full control and maitained an environment for a new player to emerge.
It's the same with ActivityPub as a protocol.
It's like you didn't understand anything I was saying. HTML and HTTP were the very open protocols that Microsoft Embraced, then Extended, and then tried to Extinguish.
The only reason they didn't get full control was that the US Department of Justice sued Microsoft for abusing their OS monopoly.
That lawsuit is also the only reason that Google exists today. Had it not been for the antitrust case, Microsoft would have crushed Google the same way they crushed Netscape.
Yes, it is the same with ActivityPub as a protocol.
If Meta has their way they'll embrace it. Once other fediverse sites interoperate with them, they'll extend the protocol, adding some Meta-only features that makes the experience worse for anybody trying to interoperate with Meta. Finally, when their competition is squeezed out, they'll Extinguish the protocol.
@TNLNYC I hate to admit this, but Zuckerberg is less dangerous than Jack Dorsey.
Don’t believe me? Which one of these two nightmare clowns has endorsed RFK2 for president?
@Linkin Now there's a tough one.
On the one hand Dorsey endorsed a kook. On the other, Zuck has his hand on tools that can impact billions and has used that badly in the past.
It's a hard call.
@TNLNYC I suspect that if Dorsey had Zuck’s power, he would have abused it as badly or worse. There’s not that much daylight betw Dorsey & Musk.
I think of Dorsey’s vision of Bluesky in terms similar to the orange sky we observed over NYC this month: hopelessly toxic—filled w/ countless lethal contaminants that will evade any filtration.
RFK2 is no ordinary “kook”. He’s a diabolical nemesis who, like Trump, is incurably afflicted with NPD. He’s almost as dangerous as DeSantis.
Many companies have been trying to disrupt email by making it proprietary. So far, they have failed. Email keeps being an open protocol. Hurray? No hurray. Email is not distributed anymore. You just cannot create another first-class node of this ne
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