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@[email protected] on the Fediverse & Meta's Threads (calckey.social)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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For those who don't want to click through, this is the content of the post:

There is another reason I find the discussion about blocking #Meta's #ActivityPub project #Threads interesting:

I've been saying for a while now that the #Fediverse is a new and different beast, and whoever tries to understand it simply as a direct social media replacement misses the whole picture. We're also federated communities, just as much.

Today we see a lot of concern about "what will the #Fediverse do" with #Meta. Wanna know what we will do? Everything and nothing. Because the Fediverse is not one entity. This is the essence of its decentralized nature - and that's cool. If your server intends to block Meta servers completely - cool. If not, cool again.

But if you expect a unified response on something like that, you're in for a disappointment.

This is not a "schism", a "problem", something to "solve". This is just decentralization in practice. We don't need to have the same blocklists, and that's ok. Open protocols are not something you can control, so chill. When the time comes for this subject, choose a server with a policy that you agree with. But if you're worried that we won't all have one unified stance... are you sure you actually like #decentralization?

Edit: It looks like the post got copied by Lemmy anyway, but I'll leave it for now just in case it doesn't show up on Mlem or Jerboa (or if it gets deleted)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Mom doesn't necessarily have to be on Meta. If she wants her son to engage with her on a platform, she can be on kbin, lemmy or any other FOSS alternative once it reaches maturity.

Not being tied to a giant corporation should not mean "obscure" or "unusable for normal people".

People figured out email, they can figure out the fediverse, it just needs time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Two things--

I agree it's going to take time, but do you think meta will wait for that time to come?
people did figure out email, but how many lay people are only using Gmail and not protonmail or whatever else?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

My point is that we need time and patience, not interfacing with Meta. Whether they use ActivityPub or something proprietary shouldn't matter to us and I'm not convinced matters at all in this context.
Meta already didn't wait - they have Facebook, Instagram etc. There's Twitter. We already exist in a space with big competitors, and somehow it works. Inviting them to our space sounds risky (risk of centralization, ads, bots, rage bait for engagement...).
If our thing is better, more wholesome, with less ads and bots, it's going to attract the people we want on our platform, regardless of whether or not we federate with Meta.
Plus, as was already said, fediverse success should not be measured by how many people use it. If enough do to produce good content and engage with, that's great on its own :) Small communities have benefits.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Gmail happened because they were giving away email for free, below cost, so that they could use their customers' data.

That isn't legal any more in the post GDPR EU.