Meta is that annoying little sibling that wants to be a part of everything when nobody wants them around. Except instead of a sibling, it’s more of a disease.
Why doesn’t the article write about the actual threat to the fediverse? Embrace extend extinguish is such a common tactic it’s hard to imagine this isn’t what Facebook is doing.
Especially since they’ve already done it with XMPP
A simple solution would be to ask Meta to opensource Facebook, WhatApp, Instagram and whatever their federated instance would be called code and in return, they can federate with the fediverse. I think that will show their true intentions on how much love they have for the opensource community. Put the ball in their court and if they agree, they will be welcomed to the fediverse as good faith actors.
Just my 2 cents.
Interesting that it doesn’t mention how Vantablack is gatekeeping FediPact and keeping certain instances from joining because she doesn’t like them
Every time a big company gets into an open source space, they try to take it over. Hopefully everybody in the fediverse recognizes that.
Am I living in a different planet from the rest of the commenters here? We have much more to gain from this than they do.
Look up what happened to XMPP (Jabber) when Google “integrated” with them.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Basically the sequence of events as claimed by the author is that:
- XMPP small niche, small circles
- Google launches Talk that was XMPP compatible
- Millions joined Talk that could coop XMPP in theory
- The coop worked only sparingly and was unidirectional, i.e. Talk to XMPP ✅ but XMPP to Talk ❌
- Talk sucked up existing XMPP users as it was obviously a better option (bandwagon effect + unidirectional “compatibility” with XMPP)
- Talk defederated
This demonstrated exactly the importance of reciprocity. If Meta plays dirty, defederate them then. Now is just too premature. Also frankly it is Meta that has more to lose than the fediverse at this moment as the bulk of users and thus the content are with Meta.
If Meta plays dirty, defederate them then. Now is just too premature.
HARD disagree. Meta has been fighting dirty since their inception. There is no reason to put even the smallest bit of trust in them, and every reason to do the opposite. Everything they touch turns to shit, it follows then that you should never allow them to touch that which you hold dear
Not really no.
The process of “embrace, extend and extinguish” has been used multiple times to destroy FLOSS projects from the inside.
Of the top of my head:
- Kerberos
- Office formats
- XMPP
I’ve just got back from a run so my brain is not fully connected, so others can give other examples.
Meta do not want to join the party for fun. They want to join because it is the only way they can smother it.
Can you elaborate on them? Stating just the names requires you to already be aware of how they were taken over.
I recommend checking this article out https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
@ericflo@lemmy.ml as well
I think fighting this will be a mistake. Instances ran by the likes of Tumblr and Meta can only bring more people into the fediverse, and when they’re in it will be easier for them to move around.
The great thing about AcitivityPub is it lets the people who want to be in larger more centralised servers connect to those who don’t fairly seamlessly.
Your sentiment though well placed seems to be incorrect, there is a big risk.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
