How big is their userbase? I presume it’s far smaller than Instagram’s, so there’s going to be less concern with having a sudden influx of users than with Meta’s Threads.

Can someone provide or point me to a quick rundown of how Misskey and Calckey/Firefish differ?

I heard that foundkey’s development has stalled. I’m guessing we’re gonna see instances move from Foundkey to either Misskey or Firefish?

So it seems their reasoning is as follows:

1. billionaires “control” (in some way) the US government
2. said billionaires have an interest in getting people to join their companies’ platforms
3. therefore, they will collude to make the US government ban the fediverse

I doubt that they will readily consider the following information with a level head, but if they are willing to listen, you may want to cite the following:

• “Big Tech” is actually rather politically unpopular right now.
• The US government has actually held various hearings grilling leaders of major tech companies. Unfriendly hearings, I would add. (Your friend may just try to dismiss this as “theater”…)
• The various major tech companies see each others as rivals more than partners. Doubly so with Elon Musk gratuitously adding his own ball of stupid chaos into things. Heck, tech companies are more likely motivated by finding new disruptive technologies to undermine their competition.
• Meta and Tumblr have both expressed interest in supporting ActivityPub.
• ActivityPub, Mastodon, Lemmy, and the rest of this whole shebang is all open-source. Even if you make the flagship organizations illegal, the open-source nature of the software will lead other people to create their own hubs, and even to develop these platforms further in the absence of a flagship.
• The US government is gloriously slow to do anything.
• Hell, billionaires hate digital piracy! Have they been able to ban it? (This might be your strongest argument…?)

Tangential sidenote: I find the Lemmy easier to understand than Reddit.

Congratulations!