this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Fediverse
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Fediverse? Do you mean, the Threadiverse?
I'm being cheeky to illustrate a point - Threads will almost certainly harm the overall health of the Fediverse in the long run, with users relying increasingly more on Threads' instance[s] to use Mastodon services and connect to people.
This may be a cynical view, but even if that does happen, the core ActivityPub protocol will still be intact and at worst be relegated to a small community of tech nerds, which is to say, basically the status quo.
The core of the software will be intact, but the community will be broken - because once Threads pulls the plug (EEE), instead of a stable community you'll have a shrinking one.
Or from another angle, they won't be able to entirely pull the plug. If they try to but users still want to be on mastodon, they can find another way.
That said, I support the immediate defederation with any threads instances.
They can pull it - most users in Threads will be interacting with other Threads users and content. Mastodon will be simply "that ideologically weird corner", and in practice they won't miss it.
For scale: Threads currently has 100M users. The Fediverse as a whole has 1.5M.
And I think that will go both ways. I mean, we all already have the option of joining threads right now to interact with those 100M users but I have a feeling most that are here aren't.
Their joining the fediverse will be more disruptive than their leaving it I think. And that's not even considering the higher costs to anyone running instances, since all that extra volume won't be processed and stored for free (though admittedly I am not familiar with the implementation details of how federated content is handled).
Eternal September-like? It's possible.
13+ million total users: https://fediverse.observer/stats
I'm counting only monthly active users, for both sides. FediDB lists 1.2M for the Fediverse, your link lists 1.7M of them.
Will it though? My guess is they're working on "fixing it" to what they want 24/7.
When a company uses Embrace Extend Extinguish, they are relying on network effects to drive people to their side. So let's say Threads comes out, starts federating, has a big established userbase, and then they come out with some new, proprietary killer feature. It could be great moderation tools - something kbin and the fediverse need, no doubt about it - but whatever the feature is, it draws users away from the existing fediverse infrastructure and into Threads. Threads then makes massive changes to the ActivityPub spec, building the walled garden back up again. Only this time, they've actually siphoned off some of the users you originally had in the community. The result isn't the status quo, Meta peeled away users who otherwise would have stayed.
By the way, while a "small community of tech nerds" is perfectly fine in its own right, I would argue the fediverse has already grown beyond that community. They're a large contingent no doubt, but there's also law enthusiasts, news outlets, game developers, users from Germany, Japan, France, Finland, and I follow them all. To see them leave for Threads would be a shame.
Isn't threadiverse already a term to specifically describe the kbin/lemmy/etc. style of fediverse service?
It's both, it depends on context.
Here I mean a Fediverse that is mostly controlled by Threads.
I think you mean WASN'T threadiverse already a term.
Yes, it used to be. Soon, it won't be.
Eh, I can see politicians self hosting their own instances from their party or what have you. Same with governments. There is a potential as well that x.com may decide to federate out of survival if it gets too big.
Why would they self-host and do work when they could just use Threads? It's not like FB gives a fuck about treasonous political parties.
The same reason Trump has his own social network.
Own instances give a lot more control. They can be as outrageous as they like, full on Trumpian, even. They can also control what gets said in that space much more effectively, seeing as how they are the mods and admins. And they don't have to worry about Meta or Reddit (I doubt Musk even cares) getting media backlash and removing them from the platform entirely.
Sure, Threads can defed from any controversial instances but it will be trivial to create a mirror that effectively refederates the problem instance.
Didn't that only start when he was threatened for being kicked off Twitter?
But the other points for censoring ideas make sense.
Exactly. No one is gonna kick you off your own platform, or in fediverse terms, your own instance. The most others can do is defed from you, but that's easy enough to get around if you're determined.
Trump being deplatformed, while having good reason, could have likely concerned cabinets and governments worldwide that they may as well "just in case". Also, having something like "[email protected]" or "[email protected]" seems more legit then "[email protected]" or "[email protected]". It's a similar idea why they don't use gmail/outlook addresses
Keep in mind, I'm talking governments and media organisations. They could likely just ask an intern to do it for them lmao. The benefits outweigh the cost. Even plenty of tech nerds have personal instances.
This is just a guess, but I think that the likelihood of Twitter federating is almost to zero, unless forced by legislations to do so. It simply doesn't benefit from that, since every group and individual leaving Twitter might as well defederate it, and odds are that the upper echelon there knows it.
Instead I think that Twitter will try to associate the Fediverse with terrorists and what have you, to indirectly smear shit into its competitor Faecesbook/Threats.
That, and Musk's ego won't allow it.
Tides change. I think federating tomorrow is definitely off the table. Heck, even next year. But if the Fediverse balloons more and more, they may have reason to.