My summary of the pro-federation camp's arguments:
-not every FB user is bad
-more is better
-the fediverse could draw people away from threads
-this represents an opportunity for innovation
-porting an account between instances is hard
These aren't unreasonable arguments on the face of it. However, the consistent flaw is that the people presenting these arguments studiously avoid mentioning any of the real reasons the anti-federation camp are opposed, to wit:
-FB's documented history of enabling genocide
-the obvious fact that since they allow e.g. Libs of Tik Tok on Threads, it is already in violation of most "good" instances' terms of service
-FB's documented current practices of abusing workers in lieu of doing actual moderation
-FB's documented history of doing unethical experiments on their users
-FB's documented history of of enabling illegal (in the USA!) racial and religious discrimination
The one thing that the pro-federation camp WILL mention is the concern over EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish), but I've never seen a reasonable explanation for why this is a scenario we shouldn't fear. It's just handwaving.
The pro-federation camp has also repeatedly tried to dishonestly frame the possibility of an admin making an instance block decision with which their users disagree as an example of tyranny. This, I believe, is because "porting instances is hard" is a wack-ass argument and they know it; thus they must catastrophize it and make it sound worse than it is.
So, overall, I've tried to keep an open mind towards the enthusiasts, but the more I listen to them, the less impressed I become. Over several months, none of them (that I've interacted with) have acknowledged, without prompting, that people who aren't straight and cis and Christian and white and able-bodied and moderate/liberal/conservative have a different set of risks to consider than those who are.
And that's the irritating part. Because we're RIGHT FUCKING HERE, we're your mutuals in many cases! We're doing our best to tell y'all what OUR experiences with Mark Zuckerberg's company have been like. The information is there. Thus, we can observe that you remain ignorant out of callousness and carelessness, or you are deliberately lying about our motivations. Really, one or the other, it doesn't matter: both options mean you suck.
