I can imagine a future where Facebook, Google, Microsoft and few more big companies federate each other's servers but decline to federate smaller ones. Whether the small ones would keep thriving regardless or fade into irrelevance over time is the million dollar question.
@daringfireball just remember how Facebook chat was once open standard XMPP. But after a while Facebook switched it to proprietary protocol. Same can happen via their ActivityPub implementation. People will have easy access to Fediverse by creating accounts via Meta so it will be the easiest server to choose from for registration. But later on when they will have substantial number of users they can cut this ActivityPub compatibility and suddenly we have new closed social network.
I don’t understand why I, as an instance operator, am somehow being made to feel guilty about not welcoming #meta. Why is it so wrong to consider blocking someone who has so whole-heartedly proven to be a bad actor in every possible case?
To be clear, I’m not signing a pledge to pre-block them, but I sure as hell will be watching what their entry looks like.
@protecttruth@shoq So far no consensus. I think Shoq is right that we need to fix the issues people raise with Mastodon, I think Calckey actually does fix most of them and I'd like to see it centered more as it stabilizes.
Pre-emptive defederation is another tool, I know Shoq opposes that but I'll likely be using it with my instance at least until we know what's going on once Meta does join.
@reflex@protecttruth
It’s nearly axiomatic that prohibitions don’t solve problems, as much as create new ones. But if people want to communicate off the grid, that’s their choice. I doubt many will make it, and admins that defederate could be committing platform suicide in the longer-term.
I would prefer we realize that Meta coming to decentralization proves it works, and start building more and better small-socials that people prefer over big.
Yes. I’m not sure that any of this addresses the Embrace/Extend/Extinguish strategy.
What Meta/Facebook is going to try to do is interoperate with ActivityPub, add new proprietary features they make hard to copy, and move most users to their platform, killing open Mastodon/fediverse servers. Countless examples of this strategy exist. Not sure I have heard a good counterbalance for it here.
@protecttruth@shoq There are multiple schools of thought on where this will go. Some see it as no threat at all and give a lot of reasons why it's different than what happened with, say, XMPP. Others believe this is the end of Fedi. And others are irritated at the discussion and using it as a pretext to condemn the entire fediverse...because people disagree and somehow that's bad.
I'm in a wait and see. I'm inclined to start by blocking simply to avoid unexpected side effects.
@protecttruth@shoq At the end of the day we can't combat it until we know what form it will take. There is no perfect answer right now because we don't yet know what will happen and what tools we have to mitigate it. Hell, Meta has proven wildly incompetent for the past ten years now, their only successes are acquisitions. They may yet just shoot themselves in the foot.
You mean, “Widely incompetent,” except for the $29 billion in annual profit. We should all be that incompetent. I loathe the company, but I am not in denial about their crushing dominance in the social media space. We will never dominate them, but we might harmonize with them, and give their users a nicer and safer place to keep their data, while their mainstay users remain a punching bag for advertisers.
@shoq@protecttruth What has Meta introduced in the past ten years that has been successful and profitable? So far as I can see, they have one successful product, their first one, Facebook. Everything else that is successful is an acquisition. Instagram, Whatsapp, etc are all acquisitions. They have been unable to develop anything successful beyond their original product, Facebook and it's related AdTech.
Why do we suddenly believe they can succeed now where they've failed for a decade?
As much as I never liked them, and hate the way they are monetized, Facebook groups are hands-down the most successful social network product in existence, and the primary reason they have 2.9 billion users. And many of them love it and would rather fight than switch. I just think it’s important to not misunderestimate the enemy. If the fediverse really is the better model, it has to prove it in the marketplace of reality.
@reflex@protecttruth
You don’t need to convince me that Meta is a terrible company, or that it hasn’t done much by way of innovation. But true or not, that has little bearing on their user satisfaction or the reality of their market dominance. They are the big dog, and the fediverse is presently smaller than a flea on its ass. We either figure out how to kill the king, or learn to coexist with him until someone can.
@shoq@protecttruth I'm not saying they are small or unprofitable. I'm saying that one counter to the "Facebook is going to murder the fediverse" is that Facebook has failed to murder everything they haven't just bought outright for more than ten years now. I'm saying it's possible the alarmism is misplaced given their recent track record.
That's why my approach is one of caution rather than screaming.
We can’t counterbalance what remain merely hypotheticals very easily. I think the mistake everyone makes is thinking we need to somehow compete head-to-head with a massive consumer-facing network. We don’t. Forgive my use of economic theory, but classic comparative advantage may be applicable here. We focus on doing what we do well, and always consider the opportunity costs of trying to do what they do well.
The danger is we will end up the LibreOffice to Microsoft Office, which is what Facebook will be shooting for if they have any competent business people at all. LibreOffice has a tiny niche market.
This article describes both how MS talked about their plans (from DOJ lawsuits, see Gates quotes) and how they marginalized Netscape and other Office clients.
@protecttruth@reflex Not a great reference; we lost the browser war :). But as important, perhaps, so did Microsoft. So did EEE win in the end? No, but it sure delayed 2 decades of progress.
@shoq@protecttruth I'd argue EEE did win in the end for the browser war, but it wasn't against Netscape. Chrome is non-standard yet owns the market. The situation with PWA's is a great example of just how messed up the everything is. Google is a master of a technique Microsoft pioneered.
@shoq@protecttruth@reflex These are the conversations we need to be having. The past does not dictate future outcomes. Perhaps multiprong focus on fortification of the Fediverse through:
specific response planning based on clear delineation of 3 distinct instance and individual response postures:
-give them a try
-wait and see
-no way never
raising a war chest through encouraging instance donations
study and implement technical, protocol and legal defensive strategies
I see nothing wrong with those things, but they assume a fedi model as it now exists is the best solution for most of our problems. And this seems to be what few want to admit to; that there are several problems, some of them antagonistic toward each other (e.g. robust moderation vs robust search, and local safety vs. global reach, etc.). We may need a more hybrid approach, in the end.
@shoq@protecttruth@reflex Understand there are lots of issues with the Fediverse and many different opinions. Just because there is an invader on the march, does not mean we should try to resolve these matters before they arrive. In this case, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
The idea is a framework to organize against the worst outcomes of #Meta integration/assimilation, that accepts that there will be differences, but is unified around the common goal of fortifying the Fediverse.
Yes to all. We should all read this amazing piece by @tchambers, who explains the potential problems and the solutions, drawing on history. Yes.
The way to fight embrace/extend/extinguish is to court users with a good experience, build strong standards and test suites, and draw in allies. We need to work on all of this.
Also Tim, the WHATWG is a good example of how to bring standards groups in close and do the right thing. They broke off from W3C because W3C was too slow and too easy for big firms to co-opt or delay.
That have Firefox a fighting chance, and Opera for a while too.
(Edit: W3C not IETF, and see below for other comments)
I’ll look that up! Others notes PHP beat out ActiveServerPages, Linux beat out Windows NT, JavaScript beat out forks, AMP format lost to well done HTML standards held against
@tchambers@protecttruth@shoq@reflex@ploum Yup. Great examples. The most important thing IMO is to get people to realize that Meta is not all powerful. It is our protocol, it is our network. We have the high ground. We can definitely do this, so let's stop bickering and get to work.
Agree. Unfortunately, getting to work may require finding some consensus about what we’re working on. I personally believe that we spend too much time thinking it’s a zero-sum game with only one right solution. The Reddit migration to a forum-like model over a microblogging model proved notion wrong in just about 10 days.
@shoq@tchambers@protecttruth@reflex@ploum Exactly. It is going to be impossible to reconcile the try it, wait and see and never ever factions. So we should acknowledge they exist, and each should develop group identity and protocols of what to do in certain scenarios. If it can be kept civil, the three groups can coordinate actions and allow for easy migration between themselves. It would be important to acknowledge that each is a valuable component of the overall fortification strategy.
@mastodonmigration@shoq@tchambers@protecttruth@ploum I like approaches like this when everyone is trying to be a good actor. The point of federation is policies to suit a given server and its members, that may mean different approaches to events like this. Avoiding destructive arguments while accommodating each approach is a worthy goal.
If this were about accommodating fascists or something I'd be right out. But how to handle corporate players is a valid point of disagreement.
@reflex@shoq@tchambers@protecttruth@ploum Right. Everyone is committed to open social media and opposed to corporate domination of the Fediverse. That has to be the common denominator.
@mastodonmigration@tchambers@protecttruth@reflex@ploum
💯It’s likely that the various camps will not agree on much of this because they have different priorities. The good news is that the entire concept of fediverse can support multiple networks of communities where each can roll their own rules. The bad news will come if our choices become litmus tests. I suspect may planners at Meta will welcome that.
Tim, that’s true— let’s just remember that ASP/PHP, Linux server, JavaScript, AMP are all really developer-side technology, not user side.
User facing tech needs a lot more investment in UI/UX, features, etc— and it doesn’t come naturally just to developers. So we need to pay close attention and invest in making good clients and good UX.
I think you mean W3C. The IETF was not where HTML standards were developed. I know, because I was involved in the HTML5 spec.
Also, WHATWG is - in my opinion - not a great place for standards development. It prioritises big companies with deep pockets and ignores the needs of people/orgs who don't make browsers.
Thank you. You should say more here about your experience with web standards groups, and based on your experience what you think Mastodon/fedi standards should do now to ward off an Embrace/extend/extinguish strategy.
I was under the impression that WHATWG and the Acid tests etc were important things that protected Firefox from being totally overrun by Chrome and IE.
Standards bodies are always - to a greater or lesser extent - cartels. They work very hard to stay legally compliant (hence FF being included in WHATWG) but are invariably captured by the largest or richest members.
EEE is an inevitable byproduct of the tension between competing needs.
It might be helpful if you researched the accuracy of your statements before posting.
@protecttruth@shoq@reflex@tchambers Tim is right on the mark here, and this roadmap could constitute the initial working draft of the item 3) above regarding technical/protocol and legal defensive measures. To it should be added legal avenues like content license issues and roping in EFF, but those details can be fleshed out. It seems also important 1) to develop specific protocols that instances can follow based on their posture a) try it b) wait and see c) never ever.
@protecttruth@shoq@reflex@tchambers The reasoning here is that we have all three types and they are not going to all do the same thing. By giving them specific categorization and the ability to develop their own response protocols we arm each group to act in their best defense and enable interaction and migration between the groups to retain some cohesiveness. And 2) is self explanatory. We are better prepared if we are not strapped for money, so a donation drive Fortify the Fedi! is smart.
Yes, Tim is absolutely correct, historically, and strategically, imo. And makes my own points better than I have. I reduce it all to a simple formula: David can and will beat Goliath by simply focusing on innovation, openness, and quality of content and discourse.
@protecttruth@shoq@reflex And we need to be way more honest with the MS Office thing. Anyone that was around during the Windows 3.1 days needs to acknowledge that Word (and Office by extension) was just about the only functional word processor on Windows for a long assed time. Word Perfect for Windows sucked ass.
@raddude12@protecttruth@shoq This. It was unfortunate and very true. A lot of Microsoft 'victories' were literally their competitors falling on their face.
@reflex@protecttruth@shoq Yeah, like for years and years, Word Perfect was the gold standard in word processing. IIRC, the first version for Windows was a gussied up version of the ‘here, learn 8,000 keyboard shortcuts’ DOS version of Word Perfect 5.1. It was was barely WYSIWYG, way more buggy, and slower than the DOS version while Word was actually a pretty functional program.
@protecttruth@shoq@reflex What strikes me when I see this is what you and others don’t want to say, you don’t trust the Fediverse. Meta can’t for any implementations on anyone. Their proprietary features will be for their instance and their client. That takes adoption. If the masses here do not adopt them it will just be Meta with their millions of users. The whole EEE is alarmist. There’s already several million users here.
@damon We agree, but I wouldn’t say those who don’t are being “alarmist.” There are good reasons to raise alarms, but by themselves, alarms provide no strategies for action. I too feel that if the fediverse cannot compete for user’s affections, even if those affections are misguided, then something is amiss with its social, political or technical assumptions and aspirations.
@protecttruth@shoq@reflex maybe I'm delusional but I don't think anybody on Mastodon or other ActivityPub plataform would move to Meta's P92. People came here fleeing Zuckerberg and Musk, why would they go back?
Now, people on Instagram and Facebook may prefer stay on Meta if they don't are bothered with ads and privacy issues.
I agree. I don’t believe the biggest problem is fedi people moving to Meta servers, but rather, meta users having a vast new trove of content that Meta can monetize without paying much for it, while meanwhile the charity-funded fedi instances will be paying to support the producers of that content.
@protecttruth Here's a round up of perpsectives on #Meta, including a section on why the Anti-Meta #FediPact is a good strategy. Also there's a footnote with some thoughts about to Gruber's earlier posts, I haven't seen the latest one yet.
@tchambers I've seen a couple others using the "trust but verify" language, so I changed that to "an approach I've seen describe as 'trust but verify'". I'm still thinking about how to incorporate your point about balancing user safety -- I don't actually think most people advocating bigger is better really do approach it as a balance, but I don't know how to say that without sounding snarky
Also just for clarification, I did talk about that post of Gruber's in a footnote, and there I was quite snarky indeed. But snark's more effective when it's directed at people who fully deserve it (Gruber in this case) so I don't want to go overboard.
I thought your fixes on Trust but Verify were balanced out with "Watch Like a Hawk" inclusion that balanced out the mistake some would make from the word "Trust." Thanks for that.
On the other:
My own view, again from most of the voices I engage with is that growth only positive if users are protected is the consensus view from this side...But YMMV. Hope you consider adding it... :-)
@daringfireball This is the “muh free speech” argument. “So much for the tolerant left”, “you shouldn’t be in a bubble by blocking people you don’t like” and all that.
@daringfireball The cool thing about federated social networks is if an instance admin makes a decision you don't like, you can just find someone you do like who runs exactly the same software/service - but with better policies.
Given time, it'll become obvious what the "right" policy is and most networks will be aligned.
I'd be annoyed if the instance I'm on right now made the "wrong" decision, but it wouldn't be catastrophic the way those decisions might be on Twitter or Reddit. I can leave.
@daringfireball Personally, while I don ‘t care for Meta as a company and as such probably wouldn’t use the Threads App myself, if it coming in means my Mastodon account can follow and be followed by people I care about or am interested in who wouldn’t likely join the Fediverse otherwise, for me that’s an overall positive. I’d call it the GMail moment for ActivityPub
@daringfireball I am looking forward to Threads supporting Activity Pub. The nerd community moved to Mastodon but I miss my entertainment, cycling & more news from Twitter. People/businesses who will never move to Mastodon will prob join Thread if they can use their Instagram login
@daringfireball The worst thing about email is that literally anybody can put their content in your inbox. A great thing about podcasts is that you literally choose what comes in. And it is shit when a podcast abuses that privilege and rams unwanted stuff into your feed. So podcasts is closer to what we want but I do not want facebook in my podcasts for very good reason. It’s perfectly acceptable to say nope to anything they do. That’s the choice we get to make.
have you tried setting up your own mail server recently? Try it and try to send email to gmail or outlook.com, just for the sake of it... you won't get through anymore.
as soon as meta floods the fediverse with servers, they will get all the data of the it and do whatever they want with them, how do I not consent to that? It's very different than sharing my data with a few random servers managed by volunteers than with a mega corp known for abusing data.
meta is notoriously bad at moderation which is already the Achille's heel of Mastodon.
@daringfireball wouldn’t a flood of data from Meta across the fediverse put a lot of instances out of commission and then out of service almost instantly? Apologies if I’m late to the party and this has already been discussed. Hosting costs was the first thing I thought about - Meta turns on the firehose and washes everyone else away.
@daringfireball Email is a perfect metaphor — Google, via Gmail, has essentially made it impossible for normal people to run an email server. They actively block email from private servers, and funnel people into their own services at the expense of the open protocol.
That’s what Meta will attempt to do with Threads — and our only source of hope is that Meta are a profoundly incompetent company who haven’t created a popular product in-house since…. Uh, the original launch of Facebook.
@daringfireball I disagree with your conclusion. My users and I aren’t interested in an Eternal September happening here, especially where the fediverse we know and love becomes a tiny appendage hanging off the side of Facebook’s servers.
More importantly, Facebook has an atrocious track record of respecting users’ data (see Cambridge Analytica and 100 other examples). They can still sneakily acquire it, but we don’t have to deliberately hand it over on a silver platter.
@daringfireball Interesting pair of blog posts. Thank you. This has been a hot topic on the #Fediverse recently. Not Reddit hot, but still hot.
One thing missing from this discussion is, "Why?"
Why is #Meta federating at all?
What's in it for them?
Like any good detective story, we need a motivation.
The usual answers...Meta wants to grow...Meta wants user data... aren't that convincing. The Fediverse is tiny, a rounding error in Meta's universe.
I think Meta's motivation is more pernicious. They got caught with their pants down and let #TikTok gain huge traction in a demographic that they struggle with. They don't want to make that mistake again and are jumping into the Fediverse now just in case it blows up. And if their corporate embrace happens to suffocate it, oh well.
This is not about open or closed systems. This is Meta looking for the next big thing after their last big thing (#Metaverse) flamed out so hard.
@JohnMFlores@daringfireball I still think they are going to try to use this to do an end run around the EU data transfer policy.
I think they will “federate” by having an instance (under Meta’s control) in each EU country and then claim they aren’t transferring data out of the EU.
@osma@BrianJohnson@daringfireball Excellent thread. Lots of great insight, particularly the idea that Threads will be used by benign orgs, making defederating Meta a tough decision. Thanks for sharing.
It's quite amazing how in a few short years, #Meta became a major player in both community groups and e-commerce. That's what Meta-level scale does, and most Meta users don't care about what platform is being used, they just want their stuff.
Question - they built out Groups and Marketplace, so why not build out their own Twitter killer? Why go #Fediverse OSS? Thoughts?
@daringfireball You can keep out criminals and still be considered open. And Meta is a criminal enterprise, as you (and many others) have said before. This feels like Meta would just be trying to get fediverse user data and pull them into FB, since it would be the biggest server by orders of magnitude over any other. It’s like inviting the entire University of Michigan to join your local book club. They’re not a part of your club anymore… you’re now part of them.
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