Some good-faith questions of some seemingly apparent benefits of a potential Corporate Fediverse, and the detriments of defederating from a Corporate Fediverse. Could I get some answers?

Hey guys. I admittedly am mostly a layman to the Fediverse as a concept. So I am coming into this post with the knowledge that I don't understand the technical intricacies of it.

I fully expect that Meta will act in as bad of faith as possible, that is something that I think we all agree on. But from what I understand about the Fediverse, I'm just having a hard time understanding how we would not be shooting ourselves in the foot unless we at least try to federate with Threads.

I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish.

Here are my understandings of the goals as a non-corporate fediverse:

We love decentralization
We love privacy
We love self-reliance
We would love to see the non-corporate federation grow

With those understandings, here are my questions:

Doesn't the fediverse have an inherent protection and/or immunity from corporate take-over?

As I mention above, I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. But, how is that a risk for the Fediverse?

QOL features, and gimmicky capabilities can be replicated.

The only thing we may not directly be capable of are 1st party Meta acct/apps integrations.

Aren't we protected?

Threads requires effectively all personal data from its users. But only their users. We are not forfeiting any personal data by federating with Threads; we are isolated to, and protected by, our individual instances.

Is there anything currently stopping Meta from scraping the Fediverse for our content?

If even anonymized privacy is a concern, why do we think that defederating will protect us? We're all posting our content on private servers which are wide-open to the public.

Won't we grow & educate?

If we keep corporate instances in the federation, isn't is safe to assume that the non-corporate instance will grow massively? Connecting with Threads and others will allow us to proselytize the benefits of moving off of threads, and improving their digital wellbeing. If we are not connected, they will largely remain oblivious to us.

EDIT: I think this is a benefit because the people who want off of Threads and into the Fediverse are the people who strive for Freedom. This atricle claims the fediverse is not looking for growth, but we do want it to grow with people who agree with its goals, right?

Aren't we worried we're forcing an ultimatum while the Fediverse is still in its infancy?

If we disconnect now, we are telling everyone "choose the shiny new Threads, or the clunky up-and-coming Fediverse". This affects prospective users, and existing users.

What's the harm in pulling the ripcord if we try it, and it's truly not a good fit?

If we pull the ripcord now, we allow Threads to grow in their walled garden.

If we pull the ripcord later, we make an informed decision.

If we never pull the ripcord, we allow Threads to pull the ripcord if they ever so choose. That encloses them into their walled garden, which is exactly where they'd be if WE pull the ripcord now.

"What about an influx of low-quality content?"

This is a whataboutism I've heard. What's stopping individuals from blocking their disliked communities?

"What if Meta doesn't moderate well?"

This is another whataboutism I've heard. I personally think that Meta has a vested interest to moderate Threads enough to stay out of the news. As a publicly traded company, it's in their best interest to not scare off their advertisers and shareholders.

If some low-quality moderation does persist though, we still have the ability to block users & communities.

Thanks for taking the time to answer any of these. I will likely have follow-ups, and if/when I do please understand I am asking them in a good-faith effort to try and clarify/understand.

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24 comments

Looking at your posting history (or almost complete lack thereof) I'm a little suspicious that these questions are as good faith as you claim. Having had years of debates with corporate PR infiltrators on such subreddits as r/permaculture and r/environment (to name a couple) this post raises some serious red flags with me.
- I came over as a Reddit refugee, and really like the idea of fostering communities with like-minded individuals. That's why I have founded 5 already, which replicate what I was missing from Reddit.
  The last few comments directly before/after this post are the result of continuing my full train of thought, looking for clear answers, in a more visible format than the comments of a lemmy.ca post. From what I understood about the fediverse, I was surprised to see communities blindly defederating when it didn't seem to be fully thought through (although I admittedly am new here, so I may just not understand). But that was the impetus of my questions.
  As of me writing this comment, I have not found understandable answers to my questions yet.
  
  That may be true, and if so I apologize. However, be aware that showing up with a newish account and asking "good faith questions" (or showing up with an account that participates in a few niche communities and THEN advocates for the procorporate view point) is a VERY common PR tactic, to the point that any time it happens it's suspicious. Adding some subtle criticism or distrust of the corporation before spinning their point of view is common as well (also something we saw from more sophisticated Russian trolls during the 2016 and 2020 elections).
  I will good faith tackle your questions.
  Doesn’t the fediverse have an inherent protection and/or immunity from corporate take-over? Aren't we protected?
  EEE is totally an blatant risk to the Fediverse, which is vulnerable in exactly the same ways earlier examples of decentralized opensource networks were. Specifically, this strategy targets the lower effort, lower information and less ideologically motivated participants (which, once a network grows beyond a certain point becomes most of the participants) and tries to steal them away by connecting them to features and content faster than the opensource network can. Once those participants are using the corporate tools and participating in the corporate version of the network, you can drop support and give the original network back to whatever of the original participants are left.
  Remember, if it's free you are the product. The users are what these folks are after, and they know they can get them by providing a more convenient experience with more of the content users want to see, and then just biding their time, avoiding enshittification of their participating tools until they're ready to cut ties and take the userbase with them.
  Won’t we grow & educate?
  I mean sure, but at what risk and what cost? The safest way to view this kind of thing is as a sort of attempt at colonialism. Let's say you're an indigenous person in 1780 and some white folks show up on your island saying they want to participate in your culture, learn about how you survive, teach you about guns and how there's one alimighty God and Jesus is his son and be your new best friends? Let's say you have a modern person's knowledge of history when that happens? Do you see this as an opportunity or a huge threat to your culture and way of life?
  Aren’t we worried we’re forcing an ultimatum while the Fediverse is still in its infancy?
  This is the best time TO make a stand. The people who will be interested in what's happening here and want to avoid corporate shenanigans can discover this place, while we protect it's future. So what if we don't grow to some ubiquitous cultural behemoth? Our volunteer hosted servers can't support that right now anyway.
  What’s the harm in pulling the ripcord if we try it, and it’s truly not a good fit?
  Put a frog in warm water. Tell him when it gets too hot to jump out, he's welcome to. Start to turn up the heat. What will happen?
  Better not to be the frog in the water in the first place.
  “What about an influx of low-quality content?”
  I mean, I LIKE Lemmy's content quality where it is right now. We should grow slowly and nurture this culture instead of growing quickly and getting overwhelmed.
  “What if Meta doesn’t moderate well?”
  I don't even care, as I don't plan to federate the instance I run with ANY Meta instance.
  
  Hey, I’m an onlooker and really appreciate you answering these questions. I read once that debates/arguments may not change the minds of the participants, but they do change the minds of onlookers.
  If OP is legit, thanks for the answers, it probably feels bad to ask questions and come away with zero answers and several accusations of being something you are not. If OP is a PR infiltrator, you’re probably assuaging doubts Meta tried to plant with this post in regards to taking a hard anti-Meta stance and fully defederating.
  
  Thanks for taking the time to answer. I did read all of it, and was planning on responding to each individual point, but it all kind of melded into one combined thought.
  I guess from what I'm thinking, it's sounding like this is the pessimistic expectation:
  Threads will do all that they can to entice people onto their platform.
  They will go for people with low standards of privacy and high expectations of networking, and try and win them over with features.
  Once they've been won over, they become Meta's product, and once they have enough products they will cut ties and leave us high and dry.
  But, if we "make a stand" against it now, because we expect to be a frog in boiled water if we don't, how exactly does that improve the above outlook? We've walled the garden for them. The people with lower standards will be won over by default.
  I guess it may just be a difference of opinion, where you think it protects us, but in my view it just makes the decision easier for those individuals since they are forced to choose. I'm thinking that with coexistence comes the opportunity to rip users of similar ideologies over to our side while Threads grows.
  
  For what it's worth, I wanted to pipe up in these comments and say you're not the only one with these opinions. Just thought I'd say so here because the nature of the post is getting you blasted pretty hard with people who've made up their mind that federating with threads is damning your soul for eternity.
  Imo we have more to gain than lose, and all of the doomsday scenarios laid out by people - though more than possible - are no better than the outcome if people don't federate with them.
- You know, I've been in a lot of these conversations today too, and I've been thinking about this.
  There's one major motive that people are ignoring when considering why folks might want Zuck to join the Fediverse. While it's difficult to defend if one were to say it aloud, they simply want his content.
  Instagram is probably the internets single largest source of photos of attractive people, for instance. It's prime internet stalking turf. It's a heavily-used service in general. Do many people want to admit that they want it on here, they want access to it from their own home Instances? No, I don't think many people would be willing to admit that. But it would definitely make them willing to fight pretty hard for it.
  What's the cost to them personally? None, really. The gain? Access to Zuck's content without having to open up another service--horribly convenient. Once everything gets integrated anyway.
  Obviously there's a lot of motives a person could have, but this is a big one I think gets ignored in favor of less gross ones.

24 comments