What if Meta's hidden objective behind the Threads-to-Mastodon initiative is a play on app.net? And, what if threads.net is a measured step towards what could be the greatest pivot in all of tech?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This has a lot of nonsense. It gives too much credit while vague regarding LLaMA2. It failed to mention a lot of Open Source work Meta has done lately. It was only from a US point of view and not how the EU has been a thorn in Big Tech’s side. Mastodon has 1.6 MAU and many users have multiple accounts. Mastodon is too small for Meta to care about. Those startups Meta squashed were doing innovative things Meta never seen applied before. When it purchased Instagram and WhatsApp there were many millions of active users. Meta as was many Big Tech companies a part of the W3C when AP was being planned and backed out. The Fediverse is about as old as Facebook so Meta has seen this before, Mastodon hasn’t done anything new on this front. Outside of that there are some interesting considerations

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I think the reason threads is attaching itself to the fediverse is precisely because meta don't see it as a threat.

It's an easy way to appear open to the regulators without actually helping any competitors.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Not only all the things you mention, but I kept thinking "Well, if they do manage to make a pivot where they are nothing but infrastructure and still manage to please Wall Street, then good for everyone:

Users will have a way to move out if they want to do so.
Companies that want to keep a social media presence will be able to do it from their own domains, while not having to worry about the operational aspects.
Decentralization is still preserved.
Transparency is still preserved.
By becoming infrastructure, it basically means they will become a commodity which will have to compete on price. Sure, one could make the case that AWS (and Azure/GCP) make real money by providing other services on top of their "basic" hosting offers, but no one looks AWS and think "AWS is locking people and charging crazy prices on S3 but they can't get a compelling alternative".

If anything, all these "what if scenarios" are almost making me wish that Zuck does pull it off.