I thought the idea of Threads using ActivityPub was great and the exact sort of change that Fediverse fans would want? Most people aren't going to use Lemmy, Mastodon, PixelFed, etc but will likely be on board with Threads. Being able to interact with more people without having to use sketchy services sounds like a win to me.
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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Nope Nope Nope.
I don't agree with OP creating infighting within the fediverse, but I really do agree with his points on defederating.
Have you heard of the term "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish"? It was Microsoft's motto in the 90s to early 2000s of destroying free and open source competition.
The first step: "Embrace" meant to embrace the competition's protocol. Things like the Open Document Format, or in this case ActivityPub. They would make a product that used that protocol, pretending like they were contributing to it.
The second step: "Extend" meant to extend the protocol. They would divert from the way the original protocol worked, and adding more features that would attract the users on the original platform to their one. They would do this in a way that the original platform wouldn't be able to catch up and get feature parity with them, such as making their new protocol closed source.
The final step: "Extinguish" would be that when enough users migrated away from the competition's original platform, they would basically have stolen all the users, profited off the volunteers that made the original product, and made a worse, closed source, non-free alternative.
I know it's pretty fucked up, but this is an actual thing that happened, and it's not just Microsoft. Google's done it with XMPP, and Facebook is probably doing it with Threads this time around.
Here's some more stuff to read about it if you are interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Your typical Threads user isn't going to use Mastodon or Lemmy though and we won't be using Threads so I can't see either being extinguished.
That's basing off the idea that Lemmy users are all tech nerds though. I know there's a lot of us on the platform, but I also know that we have non tech savvy people on here, and frankly we need them for the content they can provide. We need diversity in ideas, knowledge, and skill to be a successful platform.
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OK.
How to do suggest they defederate from an entity which isn't federating with anyone?
To be fair, they can "prempt" Threads.net by blocking the domains. That's basically how they block other instances.
I personally think the default should be to block Threads.net and federate if and when a server wants to, rather than waiting for Meta to pull a switch. However I disagree with OP's approach of blackmail and threats, and his idea he "owns" the communities he moderates.
Good luck! And don't wait for so long, delete right now.
Two thoughts:
- So there's a bit of talk about Threads being a mastodon/microblogging type platform and so it doesn't matter. This is somewhat wrong. Lemmy federates in a certain way with microblogging platforms such that two-way communication can and does occur between such platforms. However likely it is, when Threads turns on their federation they will be able to subscribe/follow and post to lemmy communities.
- Picking a server/instance on the basis of its moderations issues is basically the first idea or utility behind decentralisation. So ... umm ... continue on your merry way ... this is the point. I know
lemmy.mlhas definitely defederated already.
As much as I hate meta and hate the idea of threads federating with us, ultimately you should be able to find or create an instance that aligns with your idea of defeding with them. I would ultimately want the admin of my instance to side with the majority of users rather than drag users kicking and screaming into following their lead.
Besides, if you truly wanted more control over your web experience, we should be more decentralized. Like what the hell are we all doing on the same instance, and being shocked that the decisions of a small group of people is going to affect so many of us. Like we were all encouraged to join smaller instances or make our own precisely for this reason. Like hypothetically, if every popular community was in its own instance, rather than centralized around world, ml, beehaw and kbin, Meta federating with us would not be a big deal. Every community would be able to decide whether they wanted to associate with them or not, and we would be too spread out for it to be worth Meta's while.
Maybe this should be a wake up call for some of ya'll. Spread out and take your own actions, rather than wait for the big instances' admins to act for you.