All this conversation about #Meta on #Fedi feels like the worst parts of geek culture. So technical, without understanding context or what strikes can actually do. My thoughts:
Meta will make a great app for Fedi because it has more money to throw at the task. People will start using that because it's better. It will have QTs and an algorithm. People they want to follow will be there.
Meta will data collect not just public content, but also statistics like how long your eyes stay on certain text. What you hover over, what you toot and erase, what you search for. None of this is available to them now.
Regular people won't care because they have busy lives and just want something that works. Geeks won't care because we can use alternative clients (for now). After a few years, #meta's #p92 will introduce features unavailable on alternative clients.
People will be divided between interoperability with #Meta and alternative clients. They will like the no ads stuff on #Masto, but at first the ads on #P92 will be promoted posts and will actually be useful. It will be reliable. Small servers on #Mastodon will collapse because of rapid growth, difficulty in moderation, attacks by right-wing trolls. People will want reliability and move to the meta thing, because it's just easier.
Ultimately, Meta would kill what Mastodon has become, as everyone will mostly be using their app. They will have saved their business empire from the threat of #communization.
This is why they are doing this. It's a business move, and if you think that you somehow outsmart 500 billion $ company you're deeply misguided. In capitalist societies, smarter people are not more successful at doing what they want to do, richer people are.
A #strike / #FediPact doesn't let them do this. It prevents #Meta from entering the existing conversation with interesting content and dynamic developments. It makes it harder and more expensive for them to develop their own ActivityPub software, makes #EEE slightly more expensive.
Whoever thinks that we have somehow "won" by having them adopt #ActivityPub is deeply ignoring reality and history. We have opposing interests. They are capitalists, we are a commons. They want to eat us.
So the purpose of the #fedipact virtual picket is to stake a claim and build a common consciousness. It could grow - we could build a cross-#fediverse infrastructure to negotiate and make collective decisions. We could develop a standard for all those who want to join - a viral thing. @dk
wrote of this a long while ago.
The point of the #fediblockMeta is not to stop them, it ultimately cannot do that. The point of it is to realize what we can do together.
@loshmi Excellent thread! I like to add this article: "How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse)" from Lionel Dricot.
One keyphrase: "But there’s another way: make it irrelevant. That’s exactly what Google did with XMPP."
...because the protocoll of the fediverse is a competitor to their businessmodel.
No worries, Microsoft and his behaviour is mentioned, too.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
@loshmi I’ve seen IRC, ICQ, XMPP, even AIM to a lesser extent, and many other projects lose momentum and slowly/quickly die because of corporate “interest”. Like in Hook when Peter’s kid talks about acquisitions: https://youtu.be/PE6IZfKkwo4
There is one flaw in this theory:
How many times have 'entrepreneurs' claimed to provide 'better' email? Gmail can dominate, largely due to spam filters, but not even mighty Office365 has pwned email.
And not because they didn't try.
Also, just so you know, mastodon already deviates from the standard…
I have, and isn't it interesting that the categorization pins 'spam' on the decentralized because that's where the spam came from?
I also recall the time a major California ISP 'defederated' the entirety of Sympatico.ca for precisely that reason
And yet, fifty years later, there are still independent email hosts?
One can hope!
As I understand it, McDonald's, the most successful fast food chain on Earth, also reigns supreme in the U.S., with $39.5 billion in overall sales last year.
I know I've eaten there, but can't recall when. I much prefer the irrelevant places, largely inaccessible to the thundering hoards, but I do prefer and enjoy the minor players' food and vibe. YMMV of course
@teledyn @loshmi @dk
Email being an oligopoly rather than a monopoly isn't much comfort
Running a small email server (I have, until recently) is a problem; gmail doesn't reject your email - it accepts it, then never shows it to the recipient
For the users, it's indistinguishable from being ghosted by their family and friends and associates
@teledyn @loshmi @dk
Gmail dominates because you get "Free Email" when you buy a phone. You can't provide "Free Email" to 1.5 Billion users, they obviously get paid.
It is not difficult to operate a secure email service, it is difficult to compete with those that have million dollar advertising budgets.
@loshmi @dk I am not interested in blocking #Meta when I would derive more pleasure out of harassing them, abusing them and humiliating them. I'm not sure that would modify their behavior of boosting hate and trying to sell armaments to those bent on violence, but maybe they'll get the idea that their moderation policies are a hypocrisy...
@toxtethogrady @loshmi @dk How do you humiliate something that is not alive? This may feel good for you but it would be an illusion.
@dk Facebook as husband is just
Less sure about the decentralization of computing capacity argument (how is decentralization different from democratically-run coops?).
@loshmi e2e decentralisation is not group ware, all functionality runs on reach users own computer
@dk i was thinking more along politically/organizational lines.
i can see the advantage of decentralization in its resistance to takeover. but it seems to me like with technologies like BitTorrent or indigenous land use, it is vulnerable to enclosure nevertheless ("we will make your tiny computers illegal").
for me, social organization is a stronger defense ("class for itself"). but - i will think on it, because it is still very appealing as techn. of resistance.
@loshmi nothing is possible without social organization
@loshmi That's part of what I mean by "needs a dedicated community" it needs to undertaken by a large political movement or something like it to succeed.
Also, https://www.newsclick.in/hackers-cant-solve-surveillance
@loshmi GREAT thread. Not sure how it'll go down exactly but much of this seems likely- and the sentiment at the end is 100% true - #5. Stopping them in their tracks, limiting their ability to make the software, they want to eat us. Nailed it.
@loshmi @dk I think Meta, if they actually join, will make a great app for their node, just like gargron made a great app for hus node (mastodon.social). It will lack features valued for other nodes (e.g. Eugen's app lacks local timeline, which I value a lot on my node).
Ultimately, if they are not Threads users, they will have no good reason to adopt it.
@dk @loshmi I fully agree with you on the spam and huge increase of trafic, plus probably some corporate security gibberish towards small nodes. I think we all are ready to block in case they spam or behave like a DDOS. It's good to remind them that the existing servers have rules and they are not special.