https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Many of us do not trust Facebook and anything it is associated with or swallows up.
EDIT:
"Instagram head Adam Mosseri said "
““Soon, you’ll be able to follow and interact with people on other fediverse platforms, such as Mastodon. They can also find people on Threads using full usernames, such as @[email protected].””
“We’re committed to building support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, into this app. We weren’t able to finish it for launch given a number of complications that come along with a decentralized network, but it’s coming,” he said.
“If you’re wondering why this matters, here’s a reason: you may one day end up leaving Threads, or, hopefully not, end up de-platformed. If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that.”
That 60 million includes the vast majority of people’s actual real-life friends and family.
I know “les normies suck lulz” is a popular sentiment here, but I don’t think constantly harping on how much we hate the average person and find them to be trash is a particularly good way to create a positive and welcoming community.
I don’t hate anybody but I do hate their random bad takes and opinions on things and I don’t care about their families either.
I hate Lindsey de Fournier but she knows what she did. Pretty much everyone else is cool.
This issue is less about accepting them, and more about preventing Meta and their scummy practices. I don’t want their hateful algorithms involved here. I don’t want their growth-at-all-costs mindset that will damage things more than any of their content will help. Whether the content has any value is a matter of opinion but my issue with this is that there are platforms for that kind of content already. If you want and enjoy it, go there. The fediverse so far doesn’t have the corporate evils permeating it, and very few communities online get to say that. No good can come from allowing meta in the door, and inevitably it will kill the fediverse in some form or fashion. People like to say “oh we can defederate later”. Later? When it is harder because now you have people hooked to the “content” coming from there? No, it’s best to never open the door in the first place.
Their algorithm can’t apply here. It isn’t how ActivityPub or algorithms work. Their algorithm is per user. So that right there can’t migrate over. So a global algorithm which is way less useful is the only way. The only way to do that and have other instances ‘see’ it is to mess with the statistics. So they’d need to break spec. So if they do that (and destroy the ability to get user responses like upvotes and boosts for their native algorithm, ie make it less valuable to them) they’ll get defederated anyway. The argument here is just let’s see how it plays out. Literally nothing is lost by seeing what happens. If it’s a bunch of garbage, most instances will defederate anyway and no problem. There is no downside to wait and see.
I appreciate the perspective, but I still disagree on whether there is a downside. Waiting and seeing what happens with a group that is known to have malicious intent isn’t going to ever be a true net gain. So why wait and see? We all see enough from their platforms. Why invite that here at all? And once they are in the door I argue it’s harder to expunge them because now you have their end users in the mix crying out that they don’t want Threads defederated.
Threads does have the chance to bring the fediverse into more mainstream acceptance. It may introduce users who wouldn’t otherwise know there are alternatives. The net gain may not be one for you specifically, but the concept as a whole. It may not do that, but it can. And the argument against waiting and seeing being Thread users making noise? That seems farfetched. They don’t hold leverage at all.
In your mind, who holds the leverage in the fediverse if not the users of it?
Defederation is an instance level discussion. So I’d say the users of that instance absolutely have sway. Folks in other instances have literally zero sway. Admins ultimately have the final sway.