But why? Isn’t the whole point of federation that we can interact with people in other communities? Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub? Completely walling them off seems counterproductive
Interesting and I’d say you’re right. If you were to see a mass adoption of the fediverse (such as Twitter imploding and mastadon becoming the replacement) there would be an immediate attempt by the big tech players to gain control of it in some way. And this is exactly how they would try to do it.
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…
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.
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:
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
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.
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.
If people want to crawl back into Meta’s clutches I’m not going to stop them. Don’t give the one nice thing we have to a corporation that only wants to exploit us.
Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?
No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.
There is the potential for federation to grow massively with the injection of billions from big tech.
Sure, of course it would grow. But at what cost? And then who effectively owns it in the end? There’s an inevitable outcome - one that you apparently aren’t aware of.
My take is that we should defederate them so that they don’t become the de facto instance in the Fediverse. That way, the Fediverse remains what it is now—open and truly decentralized. By defederating and discouraging them, we’re signaling to potential new users that they’ll be stuck in their own bubble.
Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?
I certainly don’t. I abandoned Facebook years ago because of how BS they were getting with privacy concerns and social manipulation. Last thing I want is to bring those dumpster fires here. They join the platform, I will migrate to whichever Instances defed them or leave Lemmy entirely if necessary.
Simply put, it’s been a breathe of rational, civil air here. While it is early days keeping that hostile-to-humanity crap out of here is obvious minimum we should be doing.
We want individuals to adopt ActivityPub. Whether that be in the form of hosting new instances or contributing content. We don’t want corporations here trying to turn it into something they can use to make a profit. Once it becomes about the money it is on a death spiral like everything else before it.
Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub?
No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.
Were talking about meta here, this is a bait and switch attempt (I see it that way)
They launch their new twitter competitor, everyone moves over to their new twitter clone, they will try and hold the power on standarts of federation (like any big tech corporation that has a smaller rival that succedes more then them, see microsoft vs netscape for refrence)
If they will fail with that, they will try to seduce lemmy and mastodon instaces with monetization and big money handouts, were talking about facebook here after all, they are not short of scummy tactics
A pratice as old as time, done and proved to work. It’s not even theoretical, it’s gonna happen. You either are proactive in protecting the network or we will be too late to do anything. Always works like that.
If you think that giving the benefit of the doubt and wait and see is an option, then you already lost.
I’m don’t know how the federation protocol works exactly, but I’m pretty sure Meta can throw more resources into it than all the independent instances combined. Again, I don’t know anything about the specifics of the fediverse so I don’t know if that applies here, but generally once you control more than 50% of something that does not have a central authority - you became, de facto, that central authority.
There is incentive for competition from Google, Twitter, etc, that would cause federation as a whole to grow without resulting in a single authority taking over the network.
If they can embrace and extend the fediverse you know they’re gonna extinguish it, too. They’re s bad faith actor, we don’t want them interacting with us or influencing us.
Another really big concern I have is that activity pub by definition shares all your posts with any instance that hosts your followers. So if you have a mastodon follower on FB’s activity pub/twitter replica, FB automatically gets your data even though you don’t use it
But why? Isn’t the whole point of federation that we can interact with people in other communities? Don’t we want these big platforms to adopt ActivityPub? Completely walling them off seems counterproductive
Not defending Meta, just curious
this is why
there is a very good chance that this project by meta is the thin end of the wedge
(edited to include “the blogpost”, link here)
Interesting and I’d say you’re right. If you were to see a mass adoption of the fediverse (such as Twitter imploding and mastadon becoming the replacement) there would be an immediate attempt by the big tech players to gain control of it in some way. And this is exactly how they would try to do it.
Also here is a blog post about how Google killed the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) using extend, embrace, extinguish.
What’s the alternative? They go with a non activity pub system and woo away all our users anyway?
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…
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.
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:
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.
If people want to crawl back into Meta’s clutches I’m not going to stop them. Don’t give the one nice thing we have to a corporation that only wants to exploit us.
Are you telling me this perfectly human looking human shouldn’t be trusted?
Who cares? I’d rather they stay away from here anyways.
Is there a fediverse version of Facebook?
Very roughly,
Lemmy and Kbin = Reddit
Masterson = Twitter
So what equals Facebook
Friendica
Diaspora as said was it long ago. Nowadays I guess the Movim project based on xmpp can give and experience similar to it.
I think Diaspora* is the federated FB alternative
There was also a crypto backed and “freeze peach absolutist” alternative, Minds, dunno how that one’s going
Presumably Facebook’s move into ActivityPub is to prevent or limit users moving to a decentralised alternative to Facebook?
Presumably Facebook’s move into ActivityPub is to prevent or limit users moving to a decentralised alternative to Facebook?
No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.
This should be common sense at this point.
I don’t see how it would be possible to stop them to be honest.
You may be right - perhaps it’s inevitable, one way or another. I don’t know.
I’m passive at this point.
IMO this is such a shortsighted take and defeats the point of federation because of a knee jerk response.
There is the potential for federation to grow massively with the injection of billions from big tech.
Sure, of course it would grow. But at what cost? And then who effectively owns it in the end? There’s an inevitable outcome - one that you apparently aren’t aware of.
My take is that we should defederate them so that they don’t become the de facto instance in the Fediverse. That way, the Fediverse remains what it is now—open and truly decentralized. By defederating and discouraging them, we’re signaling to potential new users that they’ll be stuck in their own bubble.
I certainly don’t. I abandoned Facebook years ago because of how BS they were getting with privacy concerns and social manipulation. Last thing I want is to bring those dumpster fires here. They join the platform, I will migrate to whichever Instances defed them or leave Lemmy entirely if necessary. Simply put, it’s been a breathe of rational, civil air here. While it is early days keeping that hostile-to-humanity crap out of here is obvious minimum we should be doing.
We want individuals to adopt ActivityPub. Whether that be in the form of hosting new instances or contributing content. We don’t want corporations here trying to turn it into something they can use to make a profit. Once it becomes about the money it is on a death spiral like everything else before it.
No. We don’t. The more hands they have in the fediverse pie, the more influence they have over it. The more influence they have, the more control. The more control, the more at the whim of their decisions you are. The more at the whim of their decisions, the more power they have over you.
This should be common sense at this point.
I don’t even know if I disagree with “big platforms” using activitypub. Like Tumblr integration could be cool, but fucking facebook? Eww
Were talking about meta here, this is a bait and switch attempt (I see it that way)
They launch their new twitter competitor, everyone moves over to their new twitter clone, they will try and hold the power on standarts of federation (like any big tech corporation that has a smaller rival that succedes more then them, see microsoft vs netscape for refrence)
If they will fail with that, they will try to seduce lemmy and mastodon instaces with monetization and big money handouts, were talking about facebook here after all, they are not short of scummy tactics
Yes. Three words: “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”
A pratice as old as time, done and proved to work. It’s not even theoretical, it’s gonna happen. You either are proactive in protecting the network or we will be too late to do anything. Always works like that. If you think that giving the benefit of the doubt and wait and see is an option, then you already lost.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
I’m don’t know how the federation protocol works exactly, but I’m pretty sure Meta can throw more resources into it than all the independent instances combined. Again, I don’t know anything about the specifics of the fediverse so I don’t know if that applies here, but generally once you control more than 50% of something that does not have a central authority - you became, de facto, that central authority.
There is incentive for competition from Google, Twitter, etc, that would cause federation as a whole to grow without resulting in a single authority taking over the network.
If they can embrace and extend the fediverse you know they’re gonna extinguish it, too. They’re s bad faith actor, we don’t want them interacting with us or influencing us.
Another really big concern I have is that activity pub by definition shares all your posts with any instance that hosts your followers. So if you have a mastodon follower on FB’s activity pub/twitter replica, FB automatically gets your data even though you don’t use it
The type of things they get are