The arguments I’ve heard about tracking etc are misguided and don’t understand the actual risks.
Firstly, posts on the fediverse are already likely being consumed by advertising platforms like Facebook & Google. It would be trivial for big tech companies to setup relays that act as scrapers.
Secondly, the value in platform’s tracking individuals is for advertising. There is no mechanism for these platforms to identify you browsing the we if your instance federated with threads. Your instance won’t share cookie sessions etc with threads. It doesn’t increase your exposure.
Thirdly, these platforms have the know how to deal with spam and they will be incentivised to share that tech with other federated instances.
Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is an evil company. But I haven’t heard a decent argument as to why them joining the fediverse is a bad thing. We always have the option to defederate in the future.
Change my mind.
City planners in Florida circa 2010: "The villages sounds like a great retirement community! We can allow them to expand into our small city and they’ll bring in new customers and businesses!
The villages in 2020: “If they don’t want to sell their houses to us, they shouldn’t be able to use our roads! We’ll also adjust our franchise contracts so that Panera bread won’t serve them food anymore.”