this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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So here's the thing: there are quite a few free and open source technologies Google adopted that have remained free and open source... I'm not convinced Google was trying to kill XMPP, and even if it were, the fact that corporations can often successfully kill non proprietary standards isn't a great argument against wanting corporations to adopt those standards.
If content from Threads is available to the Fediverse and vice versa, then there is certainly a risk that 95% of users end up on Threads (e.g., because the sign up experience is better, because it's conceptually simpler for the non tech savvy, and so on) ... And that, by defederating, Threads could force the remaining 5% to move to Threads to continue seeing content.
The issue with that threat is that it has nothing to do with Threads federating. Guess what? The moment Threads launched, it had 5x as many users as Lemmy does. If simply being big and having a lot of content is what allows a platform to scale to the point that it can use the network effect to kill competition, large social media companies have that advantage whether they federate or not.
Worried that Threads will launch features that aren't accessible unless you're on their instance? Well, if they aren't federated... That'll happen anyway.
What Threads joining the Fediverse does, is provide ~1M users on the fediverse access to content from ~5M more users, and means that everyone leaving a platform like Reddit in favor of a platform like Lemmy sees more content. That is 5x more helpful to getting Lemmy to scale than it is for Threads.
One major point in the article is people on the fediverse shouldn't even play this "scaling game". You do well pointing out how trying to focus on scaling the fediverse is sort of a lose/lose situation. This is precisely why the fediverse shouldn't play this game because these social media corporations are masterminds at playing this game.
The major advantage the fediverse has over these social media companies is the fediverse doesn't need to play this game. Social media companies are slaves to their shareholders, meaning every decision they make ultimately needs to increase profits. For the fediverse, there are no shareholders that needs to be satisfied with higher profits. This is why the fediverse should just focus on shared values. Bring people into the fold of the fediverse because they are tired of the enshittification which ultimately affects all social media platforms owned by large corporations.
Here's the thing though: I want the Fediverse to have enough scale so it's got most of the content I want, and I can spend most of my time here.
Otherwise I'm still relying on Reddit, etc -- so I want scale.
The fediverse doesn't need to scale to make money, but it needs to scale to a point where there are thriving communities. One thing I loved about reddit was stumbling upon a new sun full of people talking about the most obscure shit. Lemmy still has some ways to go to get there!