I’m right in the middle of the move so I don’t have time to write anything at length on the whole “mastodon.social rolling out the red carpet for Threads/Instagram/Meta/Zuckerberg” thing.
In a nutshell:
- The *only* leverage the fediverse has over a trillion-dollar corporation is social legitimacy.
- That is exactly what the flagship instance is providing to Meta.
- It matters less whether your tiny/personal instance blocks them; given their size, you’re effectively blocking yourself.
…
- The fact we have a flagship instance and that mastodon.social didn’t close signups ages ago is a huge part of the problem. They could have set a social precedent (large instances are a no-no) – they didn’t.
- When Threads federates, it will become the flagship instance.
- Eugen is basically handing the crown to Mark.
- The fact there is a crown to start with is a shortcoming of the federated model with instances that can scale indefinitely. (How else could things be done? See #SmallWeb)
…
@aral your first point is the one I agree with the most.
Mastodon got away from its roots when most all refugees joined mastodon.social over the last year. The interface to find smaller instances was never a priority so it’s fallen flat.
Therefore, mastodon.social *is* mastodon, to the rest of the internet. And after the integration, threads.net will be mastodon to the rest of the internet.
Aral Balkan
Michael Miller 
🦆