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I for one would like to defederate from any and all corporations.
I love the idea that profit isn't a focus of the fediverse.
Same. I've already added Threads.net to my "Blocked Domains" list on Mastodon. Hoping to be able to do that with Lemmy as well.
Isn’t a product of the fediverse yet.
Hard disagree. I want to interact with the grandma's and family that aren't tech savvy. The Fediverse promise is one where the user has the power. I don't see how Meta will change that. All I see is that the Oklahoma asshole who wants to debate will get ads and I won't. Commerical sponsors of the Fediverse is validation of the idea, so let it happen. Yes, Meta will see my username and will try to make ads happen, but thats not what Meta needs or wants: they need high quality content and will accept that some of it they can't monetize. But if they can monetize those users in their corner, then they see value.
"The Fediverse promise is one where the user has the power today." ftfy
The concern people in the fediverse have with companies like Meta joining, is that:
- Embrace: they will "start off" by making the fediverse easy to access for the masses. There will actually be great growth in the fediverse. People will flock to Meta as their choice platform because they will be faster and more reliable than self-hosted fediverse servers.
- Extend: Big companies will begin to introduce new features, some of it will be added for the open source community to use. Eventually, there will be new proprietary features added (integration with WhatsApp for example) . This means that Meta's Fediverse will be different from the open source fediverse. It'll probably start out as something innocent like "needing a Facebook account to post a message / comment in their channels." Then it gets worse...
- Extinguish: Now the masses have flocked to Meta because it's fast and stable. This results in many/most of the Self-hosted services to become extinct. Then Meta starts to add more" security", like a fediverse "reputation". Meaning, if your self-hosted service submits "enough" posts/comments that are not spam, then your allowed to read/post on their platform. This means if your self-hosted and/or a smaller member you will be barred from accessing/posting content. Thus, the fediverse is now owned by big corps and you need to use their platforms (and watch their ads or subscribe) to access content.
Source: Compare the history of e-mail (the original fediverse) before Gmail and Hotmail compared to what we have today. I (as an individual) can run my own mail server, but most of my messages will be marked as "spam", if I send it to a friend who has a Gmail address, because my reputation is too low. This forces me to "pay" for email.
Setting up an email server at home is almost impossible because domestic ISPs block port 25 and you need a reverse DNS to make your mail look legit. But set up a mail server on a leased VPS it's not a big deal if you know your way between SPF and dkim.
Running a legitimate mail server is hard because of SPAM, not because of corporate greed.
The embrace/extend/extinguish arguments are all FUD arguments. Arguments 2 and 3 boil down to Threads effectively walling off their side, which would more or less mean de-federation. And what happens when your now free Lemmy instances starts requiring you to pay $8/month? Or what if some of the larger instances decide to commercialize and sell data? FUD is not a compelling argument: the same arguments were made about Microsoft and their open source embrace. And there are plenty of FUD arguments to make against Lemmy.
I would argue that federation with commercial entities will make for a better Fediverse. Sure Meta is subjectively Evil, but it's motives are clearer than some random dude's Lemmy instances. And by Federation there is ability to get high quality news, science and technology information. In less than a day, major players joined and were posting to Threads.
The email analogy is a false dichotomy. The reason behind the large email providers is because the cost of the running and maintaining an email server is cheaper than running your own. But you could run a trusted email service if you set up your DNS records correctly.
I really think a Fediverse separate from monetized social media is a healthier Fediverse.
We have a good thing going here. Let's not invite the wolves into our little hen house.
Tbh if Lemm.ee doesn't defederate then I'll probably be moving on to a different instance.
A pretty good blog about the situation I think you should read - https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Take an upvote, but I think the situation I'd very different from the XMPP and the office standards or even kerberos. In each of those cases, it was a standard.
For the XMPP case, XMPP use for Google was primary business users. The XMPP case ignores the rise of other, more convient, more engaged communication like Facebook Messenger, discord and free text messaging. For the open standard of OOXML, Microsoft's aim was to sell Office. And for Kerberos, the AD changed were driven by business reasons. Regular kerberos is insane to admin, and Microsoft made it easy; it doesnt help that Novell's eDitectiry failed.
With Federation, the story is different. The engagement isn't like XMPP of connecting to people you know, or the security reasons of AD or even the standards of OOXML. In a sense, Federation is more like DNS or a web server: it's just about connecting communities.
I hadn't thought about it this way until I read your comment, but why not let them join the party? If they're federating like Lemmy and Mastodon, isn't that an acknowledgment that federation is a valid competitor? And if they're re-modeling themselves to act like this, doesn't that indicate we're on the path to the future and we should welcome as many converts as they want to make?
Edit: Let's move further discussion here: https://lemm.ee/post/851217
I don't see any Lemmy <-> Threads interoperability happening in the near future anyway. I haven't looked at Threads very much, but from what I can tell, it's mainly going to be a problem for Mastodon rather than Lemmy. Even from a UX standpoint, it does not seem like Threads is really designed to show Lemmy content (and vice versa).
Having said that, Facebook has shown countless times that it's actively harmful to its users as a platform, so there's not much reason to believe that Threads would be any different. If Threads ever becomes interoperable with Lemmy, then I think defederation would be completely justified, unless they can somehow completely change their approach to ads, user tracking and feed algorithms. If that day ever comes, I will make a decision together with the lemm.ee community on how to proceed. But for now, it's not an issue - there is nothing to even defederate yet.
Thank you for giving a clear and concise answer! We appreciate your hard work you've put into Lemmy!
Can't you put threads.net on the defederation list anyway, even if there's nothing to federate yet? That way, there's not even a chance for it happening.
What I mean is, how exactly would you know that Threads now has users participating with our posts? It probably wouldn't be instantly, I wouldn't bet on there being an announcement on Threads' side, they might just start showing the content and comments from their users start showing up, and then you'd have this conversation you're talking about.
Why not just nip it in the bud immediately by pre-emptively defederating so that can't even happen? I certainly would welcome it.
I would prefer to have a conversation later about federating with Threads in case of those things you mentioned instead of the conversation being about defederating.
Please have this conversation with the lemm.ee community now about pre-emptively defederating. We can still have the other conversation about federating later as well.
Can’t you put threads.net on the defederation list anyway, even if there’s nothing to federate yet? That way, there’s not even a chance for it happening.
Well, at this point, we don't even know for sure if threads.net will become their ActivityPub domain, so we can't guarantee anything by doing this. But I will make a post about this topic.
It survives through the way it works. If they suck enough, they'll end up being cut off from the rest of it. At the very least, people can choose an instance not ran by them. Even start their own.
The network effects are hard to overcome for a majority of people and they shouldn't be punished for it. I think most of the people in charge of large fediverse instances are hyper aware of the embrace-extend-extinguish mindset and will be wary buying into corporate versions of the fediverse. Personally, I'll remain skeptical but I won't advocate for defederating or any punitive actions without cause.
Thats a fair take on the situation. Just hope everyone stays wary of the situation. I wouldn’t put it past instagram/facebook to try to feed ads all across the fediverse.
I feel like past experience should inform the decision. Why give em another chance to shit things up?
Agreed. And believe me you, they'll find a way to screw us all over if we give them half a chance.
This was my first reaction as well but it felt like collective punishment. I think the best path forward should be setting the example we would want them to emulate even if it's naively optimistic.
The purity test has arrived at lemm.ee.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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