this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023
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These are the privacy permissions that you grant for Meta's new twitter competitor (yiffit.net)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
488 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Yikes.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

realistically, yes :(

opinion time: not everything has to be about fast/unsustainable growth, in the pursuit of profit. i would prefer that the fediverse grows organically, and entices quality users, posters and commenters to join based on the merits of the service, and not on it's access to inflated VC budgets, huge advertising campaigns, and exploitation of a first-mover advantage.

facebook/meta will slay us, because we are a threat to it's profit model. why are we even contemplating negotiations with a tiger while we have our head in it's mouth? it beggars belief...

[–] Lemmino 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like there's no winning if you're a dev at one of these companies. Go with a centralized protocol, you get shit for creating a walled garden. Take part in federation, and people give you shit for that too. I think it's genuinely amazing that we are seeing engineers that have made some of the most fundamental software that the internet runs on dip their toes into federation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

i don't blame the devs, in the same way that you can't blame a cog in a machine. it's the machine that i'm complaining at here, not the devs

historically, big tech companies have exploited their dominant position to snuff out federated protocols in the past. why would they suddenly choose to take a sweet tone to fediverse/activitypub now?

meta has a few options here for Threads, i will list some routes:

  1. co-operate fully with activitypub forever and ever, always in alignment with activitypub protocol, always does the right/moral thing, makes a meager profit and growth for doing so
  2. all of option 1, but then after building up user lock-in and momentum, then start adding "meta-net" exclusive features to entice users to instances under their control. wait patiently until dominant market share established, and then stop federating outside of meta-net, to force non users to switch over. make a bigger profit and growth.
  3. all of option 2, but also compete with fediverse using the strength of it's inherited capital from meta, to gain market share quickly. bribe and buyout instances to join meta-net through sheer weight of money, send frivolous lawsuits/dmca to crush the dissenters. astroturf comment sections on non-meta instances to sway public opinion. harvest all data from activitypub to keep shadow accounts on non meta-net AP users. make even bigger profit and growth

the machine is obviously going to take option 3 here. i feel sorry for the devs, who know full well that what they make can and will be used in this way.