Is Apple going to make a Mastodon server? I think that’d be pretty cool. In Apple fashion, it would require an app only available on iPhone and Mac, and this app wouldn’t be able to connect to third party instances.
But it would move like half the US to Mastodon, which would be great.
Good point. Are there any protections to prevent that? I believe if they use Mastodon, they have to publish the source code. I believe Activity Pub would be the same, assuming it has a good license. But they could always use their own code without touching the open source implementation.
The ultimate protection shared by ActivityPub and all the platforms currently on it is that they are completely open. Which means they can’t be taken down unless no one wants to run them anymore. Even if the whole ecosystem follows some corporate manipulation to get screwed down the line, we can always pick up again from where everything is right now and continue using all of this as though nothing happened.