cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/12225991
TL;DR: The common view on Meta’s Threads is that it will be either all good or all bad, leading to oversimplified and at the end contra productive propositions like the Fedipact. But in reality, it’s behaviour will most likely change dynamically over time, and therefore, to prevent us getting in a position, in which Threads can actually perform EEE on us, we need to adapt a dynamic strategy as well.
Network effects are already in play even before Facebook adopts federation. I, like many others here have sacrificed the convenience of a Facebook network for a better alternative. The fediverse is growing in spite of it’s disadvantage in terms of network effect. Let Facebook die of enshittification and it’s users will find the alternatives. Rather than “direct combat” with the giant, I prefer to say “the only winning move, is not to play”.
Interesting point. With activitypub, Threads could try to avoid enshittification.
The Problem: Threads, Mastodon and the other Fediverse apps will soon not be the only players in the Fediverse. At least letting die Facebook of enshittification will not work at this point. And additionally, if Threads decides to franchise its own instances, you have tiny thread-instances all over Social Media not even operated by Meta and that seems pretty resistant to enshittification.
Enshittification is what happens when companies have to really start making money. They often lose money in the race to build up a strong userbase. Once they have that, they start ruining the experience by showing too many ads and/or charging for access. Facebook isn’t going to invest in federation if it doesn’t have a very solid plan, devised by a huge team of well-paid professionals, to protect and grow its profit margin. Anything they touch will enshittify eventually.
Mmmh, you could be right there.
Ok, but you have still the other competitors. And even if you count them out, there will always be instances that federate with Threads. That’s how the Fediverse works. Yes you can do coordinated actions, but only to a point. For letting Threads enshitificate, you would need an air-tight wall from Threads to all other instances and that’s not possible.
Yup, that is how it works, and how Facebook will exploit that openness. I only hope that more people will come around to my point of view and refuse to engage with hostile networks like Facebook.
Ok, so we have come to a conclusion here. That’s fine. What I’m not sure about is whether these two standpoints will complement each other in some way or work against each other in the future.
I at least will take some interesting points away from this.