It's all fun and games until Facebook starts adding features, then eventually starts defining what the fediverse should do to maintain federation with Facebook.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Embrance, Extend, Extinguish. Enshittification. Call it what you will, but i don't think this will end well for us.
This is my biggest fear. The hidden weakness of the fediverse is that the largest implementation gets to set the rules of federation
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XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
Jabber was widely used in the early 2000s and not just among "nerds." But Rochko would have only been 7+ years old at the time so how would he know that.
The "brand recognition of Mastodon" part makes me think this has to be a joke... right?
yeah, honestly, i think the optimism is somewhat misplaced. we must ensure that proprietary solutions, like threads, are not the main way people interact with the fediverse. it's better to defederate early and continue in smaller communities while we still can, than to let them seep into every community we have, only for them to pull the plug later and lock everyone into threads.
i think it's alright to federate with them a little bit, but we cannot allow threads to become the most popular fediverse app
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Man who signed NDA with Meta is suddenly gushing about Threads. I know, I know, this isn’t just anybody.
He addressed a few issues very topically but side stepped a major one. What happens if Threads takes off and Meta decides to enforce a trusted partner network by defederating all but a handful of instances unless they conform to Meta’s demands?
After all, if we allow Threads to grow to a successful size, that is where almost everybody will be. It is why Lemmy was a tiny project for a long time until Reddit and Twitter fucked up too badly and for too long. Twitter sucked all the air out of the room for Mastodon. Arguably still does despite itself. And Reddit did the same with Lemmy by simply existing.
Now imagine if Reddit made a Lemmy instance, kept policies around to make it grow large, then cracked down with an iron fist once they had the dominant position?
Eugen considers what would happen if Meta abandoned ActivityPub. But I don’t think would need to happen. They just need to wall off. They can keep the standard.
Another example: Google and RCS. The RCS Android users have isn’t the open standard. Google built a layer of proprietary middleware around it. They fiercely guard API access, which is why only a few “trusted partners” get to use it. And now Google is RCS. There are no more competitors even though it is open.
Because Google sucked all the air out of the room and became the dominant player able to dictate to the rest.
And so, too, will happen with ActivityPub and this whole shebang unless we stop them from being interoperable first. I get Eugen wants this tech to grow and prosper. But you don’t do it by making deals with the devil.
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XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
I love Mastodon and the Fediverse, but to pretend that we are not a nerd circle is a bit disingenuous.
Yeah, it's a bit naive to think this can't go the exact same way XMPP did.
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This reads as incredibly condescending, naive and duplicitous, filled with hubris.
For starters, the whole “yeah sure XMPP got EEE’d but who cares, only nerds cared about that, lol” is not only false (e.g. Jabber), but also does nothing to quell concerns.
Here’s an account by someone who was in the XMPP trenches when Google started adopting it.
Notice something? The “omg so cool!”, this is exactly the same as Rochko.
It’s the hubris when you’re a FOSS maintainer who toiled away for years without recognition and now a $700B+ corporation is flattering him by wanting to use/interact with his work.
The blog is a far cry from the anti-corporate tone in the informational video from 2018.
Then there’s the fact that Rochko is extremely tight lipped about the off the record meeting with Meta and consistently refuses to deny having received funds from Meta and refuses to pledge not to accept any funds from Meta.
There’s also the unsatisfactory answer he gave to people who started questioning some dubious sponsors and the fact that he rushed to lock the thread, killing any further discussion.
I genuinely think the dude is just so hyped for the perceived recognition, that he lost the thread.
So much so that he thinks Mastodon is untouchable.
And it’s extremely naive to think that Meta has benevolent motives here or that Mastodon will survive any schemes Meta might have.
What’s more realistic is that Mastodon will die because people will flock to Threads if their social graph has moved over.
Similarly these lofty and naive ideas that people on Threads will make the switch to Mastodon once they get a taste of what it has to offer.
So now all of a sudden the “difficulty” to get started in Mastodon, that is keeping people who want a polished corporate experience away isn’t going to be an issue?
Especially when in the “extinguish” phase Meta will have siloed off from Mastodon and its portability function, having to leave their social graph behind?
It’s all so increasingly naive, one can’t help but wonder if it’s intentional sabotage at this point.
Mark my words, this’ll be the end of Mastodon especially when Meta can outspend Mastodon all day every day to add proprietary functionality.
Sure perhaps years from now a few hundred to a few thousand people might still use it, but it will be as irrelevant as XMPP is to most people, and Rochko with it.
@remindme@mstdn.social in 2 years.
I read your comment before I read the blog post and I have to say, I am finding it hard to align it with what's in the blog.
Aside from the hand-waving comment about XMPP, he does a great job of explaining how everything works, and based on my understanding of the fediverse and its architecture, its all true.
I dont understand what people think should happen here. If a large corporation wants to join, then there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. Its an open protocol. If you want to use Threads, join. If you dont, don't. If you want your server to defederate, tell your admin or join a defederated instance. If you want to federate, tell your admin or join an instance that's federated. If you want to control your own destiny completely, self-host.
There is tons of choice here and the way it's architected, several layers of protection. I dont get this moral panic everyone has. This is quite literally the point of a decentralized social network.
At the end of the day, if a large corporation joining the network, kills it, then it was destined to be destroyed from the beginning.
The problems I personally have with Meta are:
- Data scraping Meta is an ad company and tries to collect as much data from anyone. They are known to make shadow graphs of people not even in their network to try and know as much about as many people possible. This is their business model so they will do it to the fedi.
- Moneyed interests They are going to compensate instances that federate with them, which turns people that run instances from volunteers into business owners. From there they can try and dilute admins further into showing ads etc.
- Sucking users from the fediverse They will make it easy to get in (import with history when mastodon does not support it), hard to get out (if you go, you can't take your posts) and will hold your connections hostage against you (we will stop fedarating with the other instances now, so if you want to connect to your friends you have to have a threads account, sorry not sorry).
That and basically all the shit big corps do like make people angry and hacking people's brains to stay on the site for as long as fucking possible. Which they are 100% going to try to do here regardless of our intentions.
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Aside from the hand-waving comment about XMPP
“Aside” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, it reeks of a nauseating amount of hubris and makes one wonder if they’re suitable to maintain the project at all if they’re so oblivious to potential threats to the project.
I don’t understand what people think should happen here
Not roll out the red carpet for starters, and not engage with the company under NDA would be a good second.
Especially for a FOSS project that receives a healthy amount of contributions from others and likes to tout that it's co-owned by all contributors, it could be argued that it's highly objectionable for one person to engage, essentially as a representative, in non-transparent dealings that are sealed under NDA.
It really isn't rocket science, here's how the admin of the Fosstodon instance handled it.
Notice the lack of red carpet, the unwillingness to participate in an "off the record" event and the abundance of transparency towards the people he's responsible for.
I'm not saying that Rochko should've adopted the same abrasive "lol, get rekt" tone, its up to him if he's comfortable with that, but the points I'm hammering on about above can be achieved in respectful manner as well.
There is tons of choice here and the way it’s architected, several layers of protection.
There is no protection. As I've stated in a different comment, t doesn’t take more than 2 seconds of thinking to see how empty the words are that Mastodon is not at risk.
- Threads federates with Mastodon instances
- Threads uses its massive engineering resources to implement proprietary functionality that’s incompatible with Mastodon instances
- A non-trivial number of Mastodon users jump over to Threads, this is the first wave of people that leave Mastodon
- Threads drops support for federation and silos itself off
- The majority of the remainder of people on Mastodon jump over to Threads because they want to be able to continue to interact with the people that jumped over to Threads and/or because they want to be able to continue to interact with normies now that they’re used to that
- Mastodon is effectively dead, safe for a select few that stick to their guns
3 and 5 will happen in a cascading manner, the more people switch to Threads, the more others will also want to switch.
At the end of the day, if a large corporation joining the network, kills it, then it was destined to be destroyed from the beginning.
Perhaps it is destined to be destroyed.
The concerns and ramifications of a large corporation, or any entity that vastly overshadows the "organic" Mastodon user base in orders of magnitude for that matter, federating with Mastodon have been brought up numerous times by many parties, with the goal of looking for a solutions.
These concerns weren't only brought up in light of a possible EEE strategy that lead to the death of Mastodon, but also in light of a more Google-esque play where the market share isn't necessarily used to outright kill, but instead to exert control^1^.
Every single time it fell on deaf ears (i.e. Rochko ignored it, if not outright killing the discussion), often shrugged off matter of factly that it isn't a risk.
Also make no mistake, we're talking about a layered issue here.
A network that can destroy Mastodon against its will due to its sheer size is bad enough.
Mastodon, by virtue of Rochko, facilitating this from within, adds an entirely new dimension to this.
^1^ Google famously bypasses standardization bodies and simply implements their in-house developed standards, leaving other browser engines to get with the program and implement what Google wants, or become irrelevant
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Excellent post, and it is truly heartbreaking stuff. We know Eugen signed an NDA with Meta which just seals the deal for me given the other refusals to answer basic questions. I think he is probably a person who is finding validation for something he's worked on for a very long time, and Meta is blinding him. But that's what they do. They are emotional manipulators by trade.
Mark my words, this’ll be the end of Mastodon especially when Meta can outspend Mastodon all day every day to add proprietary functionality
This is exactly what happened with RCS. Sure, it is an open standard. But Google EEE'd it by adding proprietary functionality using their near unlimited budget and influence, then built it all around their own proprietary middleware, like Jive, to lock out others. Some of the most popular messaging apps, including Signal, had been begging Google for RCS access for years. Google refuses, because they firmly control it now. Only a handful of partners get to access the supposedly "open" standard which Google has co-opted. Sure, you could pour resources into the old, unmaintained RCS standard from over a decade ago. Before Google essentially killed it by moving proprietary and snuffing it out. But then it wouldn't work with Google's RCS, and Google's RCS is what people know as RCS at this point.
Meta will do the same thing with ActivityPub specifically, and decentralized social media in general. They will EEE their way to the finish line. They will wall it all off and prevent account portability and cross-communication outside of a preferred partner network. I could see them walling it off to the Meta-owned properties as they seek ways to further tie Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp together under a common protocol which they've EEE'd.
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For me, I don't need new fancy features to communicate. I don't need video chat rooms. I don't need constant notifications. I just need a simple place to post my social expressions and read other people's social expressions. I don't want my experience to be shaped by algorithms designed to keep me engaged and present. For me, social media is like going down to the pub and talking with some regular friends. The BIGGER a platform is, the less it's about being social, and it's more about promotion. Promotion of self, events, clubs, companies, etc.
Threads will take away people from Mastodon, but that's a good thing. Because it will appeal to people who desire a different social media experience. They can take the foam off the top, leaving us with a smaller group that prefers a simpler, less invasive, social media. I don't have to share all my contacts, my browsing history, my health data or my financial data to Mastodon (or any service in the Fediverse) in order to use it. You cannot say the same about Thread.
I will always side with something like Mastodon over Thread. That doesn't mean I don't believe Mastodon cannot fail. It certainly can. But it won't be Thread that kills it.
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Can someone explain to me why people are so violently opposed to this?
If Threads blows up, and ActivityPub is integrated, you'll have access to all of it through any federated instance. No need to let Meta sap all your data to view it or communicate with it's users. Meta can't kill ActivityPub or force us onto Threads, just abandon it and leave us back where we are today. If you don't like the Meta users, just make or join an instance that isn't federated.
Anyone can scrape the metaverse data and use it for whatever, Meta included. Them implementing ActivityPub doesn't change anything about that.
Look I don't like Meta as much as the next guy, but this all just seems like illogical gatekeeping
Edit: I understand now, see: XMPP and Google. Good article someone replied to me with, down below.
Step 1: Threads starts federating with mastodon
Step 2: mastodon users happily engage with threads, letting it become the biggest fediverse instance
Step 3: threads stops federating with mastodon
Step 4: mastodon users switch over to threads where all conversation is happening, leaving the fediverse deserted
More than 5 million people signed up within hours, let's assume they will have 30 million users by the end of the month. I'm sure there are Mastodon users will consider switching to Threads.
https://www.marketing-interactive.com/meta-threads-garners-5-million-signups-in-first-few-hours
And not to mention the Threads app is a privacy nightmare. I'm sure they can figure out any fediverse user, If fediverse server remains federated with meta server.
One more thing, this mastodon server admin declined an invitation from meta
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This article sums it up very well: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
A monopolistic corporation joining a free (not gratis, free as in free software) network is always a hostile takeover.
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Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me. Big corporations want mainly one thing: gobble up as much value exclusively to themselves. They will take whatever means necessary to get there. The strategies to privatize public resources (XMPP, ActivityPub, etc.) are known. They look great for the public on the outside, but over the years will erode the value for everybody BUT them. In order to not let it get as far, many (including me) are of the conviction to not even give them a finger, let alone the whole hand.
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don't know about you folks but this sounded so arrogant to me:
There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
This is a great read for anyone curious about what happens when a greedy platform that grows at all costs "helps" an open platform.
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Same. This was an incredibly weak defense of why this is "totally not the same" as XMPP
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What we know
Threads is a separate app from Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. This means Threads’ user base will be separate from their existing platforms.
Well that aged like milk…
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FOSS is the ultimate form of software. It's like life, it will just get copied and forked and modified, and it will continue to evolve because it's been set free in the world.
Yeah, Facebook might embrace-extend-extinguish the Fediverse. But on the other hand, it's not the end of the world if they do. Right now, we have a decentralized platform to post, talk and interact on. If that changes, we will create another one
To me, the most interesting part about this is that the Fediverse is even on ~~Facebook's~~ Meta's radar. It's tiny. Do they see it as a possible competitor?
They see it as free data. Meta will always suck data wherever they can. Remember they have a LLM engine too and lots of money and lots of data to train it on – but more's even better. They can have swarms of bots trained to spread whatever the highest bidder wants them to spread. They can PR whitewash a brand or a celebrity, they can twist events, they can influence elections.
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Defederate. Meta would do nothing but rot the fediverse from the inside
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Meta needs to be split up at this point, as do many other tech companies.
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This is why we can't have nice things. It was nice to be on platforms with no corporate stink for a brief moment.
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Yeah, right.
tHeRe's No fUCkInG waY FaCEBooK wOULd EVER SUcKed Up aLL liFE FRom soMETHinG GOoD aNd tHEN LefT iT tO DiE WheN it'S nO LONgeR uSEfuL U guiZ!
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I had heard, of course, that Rochko was in confidential talks with Facebook abiut something. This is disheartening. Facebook is toxic and must be kept out of the Fediverse.
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That is so naive thinking I’m my opinion. They probably gonna use that in the long run to connect only their apps (like you can comment on Facebook from IG). Why would they want people outside of their ecosystems to connect with them? I deleted all their apps and I’m gonna do it with every Fediverse app that federate with them. I know that data in Fediverse is public but I wanted to join community-driven ecosystem outside of Meta.
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Rochko has demonstrated to be either foolish or naive, and both are bad.
I'm not betting on him to having been bought, out of a minimum of trust, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's the case.
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Can someone ELI5 what this means for Lemmy, Mastadon, and other platforms that are federated?
I thought the point of federations was to allow server instances the ability to prevent other instances from interacting with one another?
Couldnt servers just block or prevent Threads from interacting with them?
Just reading this? I don't understand how this truly changes anything at all. Why is everyone concerned? The API isn't owned by Zuck but open for usage.
The fear is a practice called "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" (or EEE). It's been used by tech companies before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
It, in theory, could work like this:
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Meta embraces ActivityPub in its tech in an attempt to garner good will and make it easy for users to transition to Threads.
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Meta extends on ActivityPub by saying "oh we're just adding a few things that make this better for our users (on our service) but we're still supporting ActivityPub!
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Meta then extinguishes ActivityPub support, and severally hobbles AP, after they secure enough users to be happy and think AP offers no real competition anymore.
Then the enshittification process begins, by moving the focus from users to other interests (usually advertisers) at the expense of users. And eventually to the platform owners, at the expense of advertisers. Though I guess they'll skip the middle step, being a public company?
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I can see the argument that Meta wants to kill the fediverse but I am kinda excited that we could possibly still get content from feeds that would not consider a mastodon account, even if that is a disagreeable attitude. Looking at Threads it already looks like brands "autosport, financial times" etc have setup regular posting schedules on threads so it really could be the Twitter killer.
Interesting times, we have Elon destroying the user base in twitter, sending users to the fediverse (add in reddit), whilst his mate Mark launches Threads and starts courting the fediverse. They're two billionaires. They both have the same vision. Monopolised control. One destroys whilst the other builds. They're in this together. Don't be so blind. De-federate!
We kept losing, and will keep losing, because billionaire megacorps simply have the money to move worlds if doing so aligns with their ‘interests’ (ie money). This hasn’t changed, and won’t change now either; the Fediverse is done for.
Fuck Facebook for ruining another good thing.
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