this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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[–] SophismaCognoscente 26 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I’m conflicted. I have no sympathy for Meta, but I think it would be a mistake to defed from all corporate-run servers axiomatically. Involvement from deep-pocket industries has its issues, but it also builds legitimacy and awareness.

You wouldn’t want your email provider to block all communication with Gmail, just because it’s Google-hosted, would you?

Ultimately, the strength of the decentralized model is to allow those who don’t want to see normie Meta content to move to a platform like Scicomm. But I worry for the drama and fallout when large instances make decisions that affect a huge number of users.

[–] dantheclamman 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There are for profit instances that have not provoked the same reaction such as the ones run by Flipboard, Vivaldi, Medium, etc. But Meta has such a bad track record that it's a case where most are deciding to exercise caution

[–] jcg 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The companies you mentioned are also nowhere CLOSE to the size and resources of meta. I'm not sure any of those companies could overrun the fediverse as a whole even if they wanted to, maliciously. But Facebook? I have no doubts.

[–] s38b35M5 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm more concerned about them fiddling with open fed standards like Google did with XMPP, resulting in its effective death.

[–] jcg 8 points 1 year ago

That's my concern as well. The companies mentioned don't really have the sway to do that either, but Meta definitely could.

[–] Candelestine 11 points 1 year ago

Exactly. The reason to go straight to the nuclear option with Meta is because absolutely nothing else is powerful enough to do them any harm whatsoever.

Smaller companies can be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. But when a company can throw enough money around to buy every member of the Fediverse a new Ferrari, we need to form up for battle while we still can. Or we'll be defeated before we even begin.

[–] jg1i 13 points 1 year ago

Kinda seems like paradox of tolerance. Meta sure as hell doesn't have any incentive to help the fediverse.

[–] rainfern 12 points 1 year ago

We absolutely do not need meta. The fediverse is doing just fine. There must be exactly zero tolerance for their likes. Nothing, absolutely nothing good can come from meta if you have been paying any attention at all. They do not benefit users, they milk them.

As the saying goes...

KILL IT BEFORE IT LAYS EGGS

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Meta's entry into the fediverse will lead to the death of fediverse. There's no ifs and buts, meta has zero interest in federating and all the interest in killing off competition.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The only reason to pursue "corporate legitimacy" is for profit, which. I'd say that folks interested in meta content can simply join meta instances.

I've seen a lot of comparison to email services, and I think it's an apples to oranges comparison. Email is meant to be a electronic communication standard to allow you to communicate with anyone. The fediverse is all about individual community control, not global and universal communication.

[–] rainfern 9 points 1 year ago

Indeed. Email is a good analogy to explain the federation principle, not to argue about the finer details. But going along with it, spam email is being blocked. Whole IP ranges are blocked ("defederated") by spam filters, because otherwise, good grief...

[–] eleitl 8 points 1 year ago

Google and Microsoft broke email interoperability. I absolutely would have wanted open source hosters walling off from them. Now it's too late for email. It's not too late for the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You wouldn’t want your email provider to block all communication with Gmail, just because it’s Google-hosted, would you?

In retrospect, I wish they would have done so when it was still viable. I wish they all would've done so and shown Google the door.

I didn't know it at the time Gmail was introduced. But I know it now, and this is the similar point in time for the fediverse.