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If meta wants to harvest data they would just create boring no-name servers to pull down the data that they want. De-federation isn't going to stop that.
The goal isn't to create a system where there are no corporate instances. The goal is to create a network that doesn't rely on corporate instances.
This idea that we use use de-federation like a weapon will cause the Fediverse to fragment and then we're back where we started: 50 different social media services and a fragmented social media experience. De-federation isn't a super downvote button, its use should be limited to boring server-related things (spam, complying with laws, etc).
The strength of federated social media is that it is all available for everyone at all times via one account. Breaking the network into small chunks or having some central group decide who gets to have access to social media is the exact thing that the ActivityPub protocol is suppose to help people escape from.
Brushing this off as a data harvesting question seems a bit simplistic in my opinion as it ignores the concern for an EEE strategy.
What happens if they somehow manage to scale up and become the largest instance on the fediverse? Wouldn't they become that de-facto central authority? That would give them the ability to defederate instances which aren't following the "right" code of conduct, effectively silencing them for most of the fediverse users. They could push their own anti-features to the activitypub communication within their apps, forcing the rest of the instances to either follow suit and implement it, or break compatibility with that largest instance (not sure I explain that properly, but an example would be how microsoft and google forced their implementation of the W3C EME specification on Firefox).
Are we supposed to believe that after decades of building walled gardens and prioritising money over ethic, they had a change of heart and decided to embrace open platforms for the greater good of humanity?
They already are the defacto authority on federation. If you're not on Facebook then you're cut off from THE social media network.
I understand the EEE fear. It's certainly a thing to watch out for going into the future. The way to win here is to outcompete them in feature support. If they have a closed proprietary feature that is popular then the FOSS community needs to strive for feature parity. That's always been the way you win in software. Linux is a prime example of this. Microsoft can't outcompete Linux in the commercial server space because the overall Linux development team dwarfs anything Microsoft has.
We're not going to strangle Meta out of the Fediverse even if everyone de-federated them. They can still support ActivityPub pub and the lack of any ability to communicate with the greater Fediverse removed any chance of users leaving Facebook. It allows them to market themselves as supporting open protocols and avoiding accusations of monopolistic behavior without ever being put in a position to have to compete.
Make them compete. Provide their users with better features, better privacy protection, more useful communities, etc. That's the only way to win the long battle imo.