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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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what you (and other likeminded people) haven't understood is that these 2 are 2 different topics. Defederating with meta is not because people don't want to be near the users of meta. It is because meta is a huge corp and it is not here to promote the idea of a federated network. It is here to make profit and to exploit the network. Allowing them to be part of the same network will just cause harm to the network itself in the end.
I suggest you reading this article https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html which is the story of how google killed XMPP, written by one of the XMPP core developers. I believe you will see the similarities.
@asjmcguire
I think misunderstand. I do understand that. I used XMPP. I've read that article.
My argument is that the fedipact, if executed as desired by the people running it, will defederate from Meta and anywhere that federates with Meta.
So now you have 2 fediverses, completely separated from one another. One side has Meta; the other doesn't. If I want to post something and I want people to see it and react to it, I will post it to the side with more people. If I want to scroll endlessly without needing to stop and refresh or wait because the feed is stale, I will look at the side with more people.
The other side - the fedipact side - will slowly become stale and niche. There will always be hardcore users - people still use XMPP - but it will fade into what it was in 2020 and 2021. My Lemmy account - @EnglishMobster - is from 2020. My original Mastodon account is even older. I've seen this place grow and blossom into what it is now, and the fedipact is threatening that growth. People will leave the side of the fedipact and join the side without it... which is to say, the side dominated by Meta.
Instead of a big wide fediverse with open source projects living alongside random PeerTube creators living alongside movie stars... we have 1 niche one and 1 dominated by a large corporation. It's literally the same result as if Meta went through with Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... but done without the "extend" or "extinguish", a massive "own goal" by the FOSS community.
And worse - it doesn't stop Facebook from going through with "extend" or "extinguish" later. It literally just destroys communities for no reason, leaving us in the exact same situation that XMPP is in today.
I am fine with an instance saying "we won't federate with Threads". I'd rather it not be Kbin, of course, but I will move to an instance that does federate because my friends are important to me.
I am not fine with me being held hostage for that. I don't want to join Threads directly if I can avoid it; I'd rather use my Kbin account. But the fedipact is trying to make that impossible by saying "we will defederate anywhere that federates with Threads".
i'm sorry but you're naive.
do you know how FB or instagram work? Do you think that when you post, your post reaches your whole audience? I believe you know how they work but for some reason you chose to ignore now.
So, you've read the history of XMPP. Did you understand what google practically did? Simply put, meta will create new features on top of activity pub. Open source activity pub developers will be in a constant race to adapt their own projects in a way that will be compatible with meta's project. They will have no voice but to follow whatever meta decides. Users will start getting fed up that their open source instance is not behaving as well as their friend's meta instance. People will jump project and/or when users are polarised, meta will decide that they had enough with activity pub. It doesn't cover their needs and they move to another completely closed project. Users again are forces to choose side and the open source community is just left with the project which they adapted in favour of meta, but now meta is gone because they were never in the same boat actually.
Staying away from meta is a decision in the basis of protecting the whole project. It is not because people don't want to be close to the users of meta. It is because meta is not here to promote the federated networks. It is here to make profit of it and they may even destroy it if they believe that this is the way to make profit. Siding with them is naive and will never bring value in the network itself.
Of course not. But it doesn't on Mastodon either. Or Kbin. Or even Lemmy.
If someone is on vacation when I make my post on Mastodon, there is a good chance they will never see it. The post isn't going to be recommended to them - the feed is chronological. They would have to specifically search me out and scroll way back to see my posts.
If my post doesn't make it to "Hot" on Kbin or Lemmy, by default it dies. The only ones who will see it are those sorting by "New". That's a fraction of the complete audience. That's just how algorithms work.
Facebook and Twitter have their own recommendation algorithm of some kind. Threads does too, from what I've seen of it. While I wouldn't expect my stuff to go viral, frankly my friends are more likely to care and react to a post I make there. I don't use Facebook anymore, but I had plenty of interactions when I did use it. You will never reach your entire audience unless your entire audience reaches out for you - but on average the people I know are more likely to care about me than some strangers on my Mastodon instance. So I'd rather post where they can see it.
Yes, that was... like, my entire point. Everything you just described will happen with or without the fedipact. If Meta has plans to go through with EEE, they will do it no matter what. Even if everyone defederated from them, they'd still build on ActivityPub in weird ways and break the protocol over time.
But we know that not everywhere will defederate with them. So what will happen is you're going to have a splinter group defederated anywhere that federates with Meta (or federates with somewhere that federates with Meta) and you're going to have... well, everyone else.
People are going to leave and go to the side that federates with Meta, because that's where the network effect is strongest. Again, I don't care that someone on my Mastodon instance got married. I mean, congratulations, I guess... but if my childhood best friend is getting married, I'm more invested. I don't want to use Meta's stuff if I have another option; after all, I did quit Instagram and Facebook cold turkey. But I would jump at the ability to have those moments while still keeping Zuck off my computer.
So, like I said, this is going to lead to 2 fediverses. One that federates with Meta, and one that doesn't. And "normal" non-techie people are going to want to go to where they get the most eyeballs on their stuff - that means somewhere that federates with Meta.
Meta could still start extending and extinguishing. But they could do that anyway. That is a completely separate subject from the fedipact as designed. I agree that it's a problem, but the fedipact being executed will only speed up the process, bisecting the entire project and turning it back into a niche thing for nerds. You know, like XMPP or IRC.
Staying away from Meta literally has zero impact on what Meta does. Meta will do whatever.
The choice is if Mastodon tries to adapt to be compatible or not. Breaking ActivityPub for compatibility with Meta is a losing proposition, and one that we shouldn't even start. But that's the fight we should be having; holding firm if/when Meta stops holding to the standard.
The fedipact is self-defeating and won't stop Meta from being Meta. The only thing the fedipact will do is ruin the fediverse writ large. The true way to preventing an XMPP situation is by having maintainers hold firm and act just as they did before Meta joined; no feature creep, no goalpost moving. Break EEE at "extend", not "embrace".
@EnglishMobster
if no one is federated with them, then open source projects don't care if they break activity pub because nobody will be in a race to adapt in order not to break the federation. They will live happily in their own custom fediverse without affecting the community. I don't get why you struggle to understand this concept. I think it is because of
where you clearly struggle to understand that the one who is causing the issue here are the ones that opt to follow meta's path. The ones that will try to adapt. Not the ones that want no connection with the big corp. Instead of realising that meta has no good intentions, you side with them saying "it is what it is" and you just want to wait patiently till they actively start causing issues.
Then again, I think we're having the conversation in a wrong basis. Your biggest argument is that you want to be in the same platform as your friends. Yes, if for you the reason of existence of the federated network is to enable you reaching your friends who don't want to leave from their corporate networks, yes, then federation with meta is necessary. However the idea behind such network is not only to provide another UI to join a corporate network. Its much more than that.
I know I haven't replied/addressed all your points, most probably I'll come back later.