this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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But is it even possible for a mega corporation to embrace federation? Isn't that essentially a contradiction in terms?
It's the kind of embrace a boa constrictor wants to have with a rabbit. The answer always needs to be no.
Exactly. Absolutely anyone can set up an instance.
Want your own Instagram type system? Roll out a Pixelfed server. Want your own Lemmy.
The #Fediverse is big. Very big. Probably up into tens of thousands of servers. No company could take it over, which is by design.
Google runs gmail, which like all email service providers is basically federated with all other email service providers. Hasn't stopped smaller email providers from continuing to chug along just fine.
To be clear, though, that's a best case scenario. It's definitely possible Meta could try to warp the Fediverse so that it kills all instances other than their own. We'll have to be vigilant and proactive to make sure that doesn't happen here.
This is my primary concern; if smaller instances say "we will block them on sight and anyone who federates with them as traitors" then it's a matter of getting the largest instances to go along with it and suddenly you've blocked a large chunk of users due to the fracture of smaller ones trying to defederate their way out of the problem and into a different issue.
I think @JakeBacon has a reasonable take, there are some upsides, and some downsides. I don't think there is anything that is gained by pre-emptively doing anything though. If they run their own instance, see what it does and then decide accordingly.