this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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@koberulz @murphys_lawyer
Threads isn't just another Mastodon instance. Threads uses a similar format to Mastodon, and they may communicate with each other, but the similarities stop there. Threads will probably have some proprietary features to make it "stand out" from the others. Also, if many people jump on board Threads, the thing is that Meta will then have a monopoly on the Fediverse, which is the exact thing the Fediverse is trying to extinguish: Monopolies controlled by corporations.
The "monopoly on the Fediverse" argument is something that I explicitly wanted to counter in my post. The fact is, Threads will become one of the largest if not the largest instance in the Fediverse, if we federate with them or not. Their users don't sign up to Threads to talk to us, they sign up because it's the hot new thing from Meta. If we defederate right away, they become their own bubble, their users never know we're there and they can do to their platform whatever they want.
But if we federate with them as long as they play (relatively) nice, their users will get used to being able to talk to us which gives us leverage. They will be bound to use the same protocol as us or their users will complain about not being able to talk some of their friends anymore and maybe even migrate to an open alternative. And if they still want to go through with a change we don't like, we can still refuse to implement it.
Our choice is not between Meta having a monopoly on the Fediverse and everything being as we want it. It's between them having an alternative to the fediverse that will overtake us within weeks and having a slim chance at being treated as equals.
While I agree that it is probably better to not defederate them right from the start, I believe that the Fediverse might not have that much leverage. This recent blog post about the history of XMPP describes it pretty well: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Of course it's different because this is social media and not just 1:1 privat messages. But for us to actually have some leverage/impact we have to generate a lot of (good) content so that Threads users will actually notice and complain if that content "vanishes". And at the same time we must not become too dependent on their content
This is more of a warning against monopolies than access. Businesses applying resources to the Fediverse can only help it grow as long as it does not completely take over. Competition, whether it be individuals, businesses, or government, can help keep it healthy and guard against anticompetitive behaviors.
As I said elsewhere: this would still have been the case if Google hadn't used XMPP in the first place. All those people you have lost when Google defederated either wouldn't have been on XMPP at all or care enough about privacy and open source to have both. It's not like you have lost anyone who had been there before Google started using XMPP. Same with Threads. Every single user who is on the fediverse today will still be here if they defederate (unless they leave for other, unrelated reasons of course). Considering our existing userbase's interests, I don't see many people giving up their existing accounts in favor of a Threads account.