this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 6 months ago (3 children)

What do you mean by Mastodon selling out to Meta? Isn't Meta just building an ActivityPub based platform so we can talk to their users as far as I know. If they want to talk to us, then the onus is on Meta to stay compatible. If they aren't, then we just continue on as we have.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Please look up 'embrace, extend, extinguish' Meta should be met with open hostility in the fediverse. Mastodon losing nonprofit status in Germany, moving to the states and then appointing this guy leads me to think that mastodon has been compromised

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Don't worry I've been quoted EEE enough times. I really don't think that is the direction this will go down. If Meta actually embraces it, then the whole of the fediverse grows over all. Then, if Meta does extend the ActivityPib protocol in a way the that becomes incompatible with the rest of the ecosystem, we just let them go and do their own thing. ActivityPub already has a userbase, if they join us, and then later on cause problems then everything just goes back to how it is right now. The final E can't realistically happen because the existing ecosystem will just carry on exactly as it is now. If people on Threads want to communicate with us, then they need to speak the same protocol. If they don't, then they don't get to participate.

Do you genuinely believe that the whole community of the fediverse would just lie down and accept breaking changes to the protocol without resistance? There are too many talented and passionate people invested in this ecosystem, the absolute worst case scenario is the protocol itself gets forked, and again the exist communities just carry on. There is no extinguish time line. Everyone points to how Meta handled XMPP, please compare the user bases of ActivityPub vs XMPP. The world has changed a lot since then. Another example I'd like to point out is Hashicorp's Terraform. They explicitly tried to EEE, and the moment they attempted the final E, it was instantly forked, and the open licensed fork was adopted into the Linux Foundation and the ecosystem carried on.

Take that what you will, but I am reasonably convinced ActivityPub has enough support and community that any EEE attempt will inevitably fail. The front ends will change, the hosters will come and go, the open standard is here to stay.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The whole community won't lie down, but a lot of the visible members will spread their legs. This is the nazi at the table situation, and for a project that was supposedly created to get away from the toxic model of facebook and twitter this is something like a parody. The only people who get something out if this are the people who are not us. Now maybe you are right, maybe the community will prevail. It's just that it doesn't have to shoot its own feet every two minutes in the dumbest fucking way possible

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's sorta the curse of an open protocol is that anyone, even your enemies, can use them. I am no fan of Meta. I am a big fan of open standards, monkey's paw and all. It is not a case of tolerating the intolerant. To restrict Meta out of using ActivityPub is against the spirit of open standards. The protocol is no longer open, and THEN we really have something to worry about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Sure, but I would make an exception for meta because they are genocide enablers. Even if that's too much I don't understand people who keep saying it's all fine, it's great even.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

OK, but did you read the comment you were replying to?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago

You're correct. ActivityPub is an open protocol and Meta, or more importantly anyone else, can use it however they want.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I view the bigger issue as Meta is hostile towards humanity's privacy and freedom, and Mastodon leadership view Meta joining the Fediverse as an unqualified win. Meanwhile, I don't think Meta is interested in ActivityPub as a protocol to make Instagram Threads more appealing, I think they're overall much more interested in what data the can gain, and sell, analyzing the interactions between their own user pool and the rest of the fediverse that user pool interacts with.