I think this is so interesting...
For a refreshing change, we have corporations coming to the users, not the other way around.
I'm deeply skeptical, but I'm glad communities and hubs have the power to block them outright.
I think this is so interesting...
For a refreshing change, we have corporations coming to the users, not the other way around.
I'm deeply skeptical, but I'm glad communities and hubs have the power to block them outright.
Nope. Money will buy blood.
I mean everyone could just not federate with them, right?
Bad. I just feel bad.
I think they would take advantage of Fediverse and destroy it.
Just block them from federating and move on.
I'm trying to get away from Facebook and meta. I'd rather they weren't remotely near me at all
Exactly my thoughts, I don’t trust meta or zucky’s leadership, their motives will always be profit over everything else
News story I looked up. Fuck Meta and all the other money-sucking bastards that want to commodify every breath I take.
https://fediversereport.com/meta-plans-on-joining-the-fediverse-the-responses/
Pros
Cons
we shouldnt let them in. they would have done decentralized service years ago if there was money in it for them. They either want us to stop or try to seize control in only way that can -> by worming in.
We must have zero-tolerance for corporations or we might as well just give up.
Meta is a corporation with a really horrible track record
and even if they didn't, it's still a corporation; it only cares for profit
I have very negative opinions on them joining
We would be opening the door to allow a large corporation to do what they've done with open source for a while. They'll privatize the public commons.
But all this work [GPL licensing] was ridiculed. Microsoft, through Github, Google and Apple pushed for MIT/BSD licensed software as the open source standard. This allowed them to use open source components within their proprietary closed products. They managed to make thousands of free software developers work freely for them. And they even received praise because, sometimes, they would hire one of those developers (like it was a "favour" to the community while it is simply business-wise to hire smart people working on critical components of your infrastructure instead of letting them work for free). The whole Google Summer of Code, for which I was a mentor multiple years, is just a cheap way to get unpaid volunteers mentor their future free or cheap workforce.
Our freedoms were taken away by proprietary software which is mostly coded by ourselves. For free. We spent our free time developing, debugging, testing software before handing them to corporations that we rever, hoping to maybe get a job offer or a small sponsorship from them. Without Non-copyleft Open Source, there would be no proprietary MacOS, OSX nor Android. There would be no Facebook, no Amazon. We created all the components of Frankenstein’s creature and handed them to the evil professor.
This article is actually pretty great.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-19-more-rms.html
And for emphasis:
We created all the components of Frankenstein’s creature and handed them to the evil professor.
Facebook et al has had a horrible track record of creating a new app/service and getting people on board. Their 3 successes are Facebook, Whatsapp (bought), and IG (bought). Every time they've launched an app outside of these, they failed (IGTV anyone?).
The Fediverse is open.
They can create Threads on activity pub and hope that they can create a server that competes with Twitter. Go for it, who cares. You can choose to follow people there or not, or join or not, or be on a server that defederates from it or not.
That's the beauty of it.
Meta's userbase is diverse. It has good and bad players. No need to broadstrokes it. If people join the Fediverse via Threads, many will discover Mastodon, Lemmy, Kbin, Calckey etc over time. Discovery & community!
So, like... in conclusion or whatever... everyone needs to chill. IMO.
Stay the fuck away
In general, it's great when companies embrace standards and open source. Though in the case of Microsoft, they just did it to gain the market share (embrace, extend, extinguish).
I'm under no illusion that they would be doing it out of the kindness of their hearts or desire to be compliant with standards.
But..i also don't think I can criticize them yet for wanting to do so.
To paraphrase from a bank robber - Meta is where the users are. If we want open source technology to grow, we need to have users. If you block Meta out of the gate, how do you get their users to transition? IMO, energy should be spent on strategizing how to get the users to transition to open source instances, not getting people riled up to block them immediately.
They will datamine any instance that federates with them. They have had so many privacy issues it would be insane to give them the benefit of the doubt again. A leopard can't change its spots.. Not to mention the NSA docs & Cambridge Analytica.
They have proven themselves to be a hostile actor on the Internet.
I view them embracing federation as a good thing.
I also view it as important for the instances I wish to follow to never federate with them.
But is it even possible for a mega corporation to embrace federation? Isn't that essentially a contradiction in terms?
It's the kind of embrace a boa constrictor wants to have with a rabbit. The answer always needs to be no.
All instances should defederated with corporation instances ASAP
Corporations already joined the federated internet when they adopted the web.
Even if they wanted to, they can't take over the entire fediverse, that's the point.
keep corporations OUT
Makes more sense for Meta to create their own "Metaverse" than join an open-source network.
Instagram and Facebook already communicate, it won't be too difficult to include WhatsApp into that mix.
If they buy something like Mastodon, it would make better business sense to cut it off from the Federation and sync it with Meta's products instead.
Mastodon software is still open source under agpl-3. As far as I understand the license terms, every change to the software has to be open sourced. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Affero_General_Public_License)
mastodon gGmbH can still be sold, but my guess is that it won‘t be of much use to zuck.
A major company seeing the competitive advantage of joining the fediverse is a great development. I don't expect Meta to act in good faith, but it's an accomplishment nonetheless.
My problem with that is then the fediverse doesn't grow, meta controls the largest instance, and they make money off any posts that go viral here. I have to disagree for those reasons. They can go.
And they’d probably build in things to a slightly off standard so it’s not fully interoperable and when people call them out they’ll say it’s an improvement and they’ll be making it public any day now pinkie swears.
Makes no difference to me. Those who believe they have privacy just because Meta and others don't yet have their own instance are mistaken.
I don't believe at all that I have any privacy on the internet. As someone in the US, I pretty much assumed I lost that when Bush signed the Patriot Act. My dislike of Meta joining has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with their love of destroying good things for the sake of profit. I have no desire for yet another thing to become a corporate bullshit farm. This is honestly my last resort. If the fediverse is dismantled for profit, I'll just stop any type of social media whatsoever. It's not worth it to me.
If they join the Fediverse I am leaving. We have made the Fediverse to get away from coorporations like them, letting them join us will defeat the whole point of what we have.
I think we should let them consume Fediverse content but not create it.
If Meta proposes to let Instagram users follow people on Mastodon or whatever, that seems like a reasonable compromise - they get to keep people on their feeds viewing ads and we get more reach - but they shouldn't have the power to leave and take a large % of Fediverse content with them; if you want to make a post, you need to do so from a non-Meta-controlled instance in a non-Meta-controlled app.
My problem with that is then the fediverse doesn't grow, meta controls the largest instance, and they make money off any posts that go viral here. I have to disagree for those reasons.
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