this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Fediverse

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How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) (ploum.net)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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This blog post by Ploum, who was part of the original XMPP efforts long ago, describes how Google killed one great federated service, which shows why the Fediverse must not give Meta the chance

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Aye great read and very illuminating. We gotta protect the fediverse from corporate insidious destruction. This quote stood out to me:

And because there were far more Google talk users than "true XMPP" users, there was little room for "not caring about Google talk users". Newcomers discovering XMPP and not being Google talk users themselves had very frustrating experience because most of their contact were Google Talk users. They thought they could communicate easily with them but it was basically a degraded version of what they had while using Google talk itself. A typical XMPP roster was mainly composed of Google Talk users with a few geeks.

In 2013, Google realised that most XMPP interactions were between Google Talk users anyway. They didn’t care about respecting a protocol they were not 100% in control. So they pulled the plug and announced they would not be federated anymore. And started a long quest to create a messenger, starting with Hangout (which was followed by Allo, Duo. I lost count after that).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

But XMPP users were presumably still around and outlasted Google and their apps. We'll be the same even if Facebook churns the protocol, because the whole point of being on Mastodon or KBin is to not be on Facebook.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Agreed but they will bleed off users more than likely with their shenanigans. The Fediverse is at a tipping point. It will either develop to be robust and fun/informational, or it will remain the playground for a few. Societies only become better when more people are actively involved. We need the involvement now more than ever to guard against fracturing.

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