Seems like just another reason why defederation should be completely removed from the protocol. It’s way too easy to abuse and force centralisation.

There are other far less destructive and abusable ways of dealing with spam and content moderation.

I maintain that it’s better to give the users the control, and allow them to decide which instances, communities, and users they want to be exposed to. Bottom up moderation, instead of top down.

For example, instances can provide suggested ‘block’ lists (much like how an ad blocker works) and users can decide whether or not to apply those lists at their own discretion.

By forcing federation, the network stays decentralized. Maintaining community blacklists that can be turned on or off by the individual user protects against heavy handed moderation and censorship, whilst also protecting users from being exposed to undesirable content.

I’m not sure the distinction would make enough of a difference, and focusing only on XMPP might be doing yourself a disservice. There was nothing social about Office, but the OP points out how the same strategy worked there as well. Users, overall, tend to go where the other users are. Some people left Digg for Reddit because they were unhappy with Digg, but the vast majority simply followed because it was where the users (therefore activity) went. Reddit wasn’t even the best of the many options at that time; what was important was the inflow of users. Once that kicks off, others tend to flock like moths to flame.

As you point out, Reddit was not where you interacted socially, yet it became where you congregated because that was where everyone else was and therefore where the easiest access to content and engagement was. If a Meta product becomes the most popular way to consume ActivityPub content, and therefore becomes the primary Source for that content, independent servers will become barren with just a Meta Thanos-snap of disconnecting their API. They only need to implement Meta-only features that ActivityPub can’t interact or compete with, and the largest portion of users will be drawn away from public servers to the “better” experience with more direct activity. (And that’s without mentioning their ability to craft better messaging, build an easier on-boarding experience, and put their significant coffers to work on marketing.)

Sure, there will still be ActivityPub platforms in the aftermath. Openoffice/Libreoffice still exists, XMPP clients and servers still exist, there are still plenty of forums and even BBS systems. But, there is a reason why none of those things are the overwhelmingly “popular” option, and the strategy they will employ to make sure that happens is the focus of the article, not so much XMPP.

As someone who is on just about every social media and aggregator site there is, I find myself gravitating toward sites that allow for as much interaction (or little) as I would like. My friends and I communicate through Facebook messenger, which obviously requires FB, but I use a browser/app called Ferdium, which lets me open messenger directly without the annoyance of opening the Facebook app itself. But each site has its own specialization that it does rather well. I mean, look at Discord’s little communities, which are really designed to support the gaming community, and say, Instagram, which does photos very well. I get that companies would like the One Site to Rule Them All, but I look at it like I would at McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. McDonald’s caters to one of my tastes, and Dunks does the other. Like your example with AIM I’ve largely given up with trying to get my friends to sign up for services. I’m older, and remember AOL when it was just starting out and even remember Compuserve when it was little more than a list server.

You are spot on. The difference between the products/services/values offered by XMPP and AcitivtyPub based fediverse is a very crucial distinction.

XMPP’s value is derived from its connectivity. It is bandwagon effect at work. A single fax machine makes no sense but what about another one? Or another 100 ones? Now you have a positive network externality.

The bulk of the AcitivtyPub based fediverse works very differently. The value is from the content, be it people shitposting or memes or cats. As people who frequent online forums and communities can tell, the majority of members are mere readers. They are content consumers. Content producers are often the minority. The reason why soneone will stick to a particular platform is because of the content and the expectation that more is coming.

This is a really good call out. I’ve been thinking about this article since I read it earlier today, and I never thought about the distinction between user groups and how people used xmpp vs how people use a activitypub Lemmy/kbin.

I think you are spot on.

Which actually makes me think that mastodon might have a little to worry about since its less anonymous and who you follow actually matters. And there is more interaction between (not anonymous) people.

My friends are like your friends in that we all use reddit, but never even share our usernames with each other.

We can’t effectively block corporate injections, unfortunately. The admins of large hub instances are just of the opinion that bigger is better, and that more is more. They’ve been excited by the prospect of, I don’t know, legitimacy or something, for a while now.

The result is going to be the network… not fracturing, per-se, but significantly restructuring itself. Big instances will get sucked into Big Social’s halo, and be like the suburbs to Meta’s or Tumblr’s metropolitan centres. Smaller instances will end up as the exurbs. Content will flow quickly between metro and suburban spaces, and trickle across suburban spaces between the metro and exurban spaces. And which Fedivesre site you choose to use will end up mattering even more than it does now.

Right now, there’s speculative reason to believe that Meta’s offering up incentives to big instance admins. Those incentives will ultimately result in Meta owning them by proxy. They’ll be client kingdoms, to mix metaphors, working on Meta’s behalf, but getting relatively little in return for it.

I think Reddit moderators probably have a good idea about how they’ll ultimately end up feeling.

@MyMulligan @jherazob I disagree.

I think the key thing is to just make sure that you don’t use non #FOSS clients. #GoogleTalk started as a client for #XMPP, people migrated to it, and then #Google dropped support for #XMPP. If so many people didn’t use #GoogleTalk, the #XMPP network would have remained unimpeded.

I don’t think Google cares if the Fediverse succeeds or not. All they care about is that it can be indexed and people will be able to show Google ads on their instances.

Google doesn’t have a Reddit equivalent or even any other social network competitor (anymore; they killed them all). They explicitly chose to exit that entire concept of products.

The only reason XMPP mattered to Google at the time was they were trying to compete with Apple for messaging on mobile devices. XMPP meant that Android devices using Google Hangouts/Chat/Gmail could chat with users on other platforms/services while Apple’s chat app could only do SMS.

I guess what I’m saying is that Google is mostly irrelevant from the perspective of the Fediverse other than the fact that it can index and maybe give priority to discussions of certain products/topics like it does with Reddit currently.

My synopsis is that if any big corporations joined the Fediverse they would fracture it.

I’m not so sure. Facebook has an onion version that runs on the tor network. Big tech dominates the clear web but there’s plenty of room for everyone else.

Ultimately you have user types. In a few more months, LemmyVerse could have a couple of million active users.

I’d bet the vast majority would scoff at a fediverse version of Facebook. It’s just a different crowd - not unlike the tor network where Facebook (probably, maybe?) exists in nmae only.

It’s premeditated, the “Drama” is used as a scapegoat & a precursor (Divide & disintegrate).
Typical tactics with conservative & neoliberal thrive on Repression/Regression/Chaos/Disorder (We’re dealing with corrupt institutions & industry.).

Same. I was familiar with “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” but somehow still didn’t get it until Ploum explained it to me slowly.

Your comment made me read it. You’re right. I remeber the XMPP gchat days but I was too young to understand or care what XMPP was. I just remember the slick we ui being mind blowing.

the powers that be must never be allowed to join the fediverse

How are they not allowed? How is it checked, how prevented?

As I see it, they can freely use the code, freely set up instances, freely create user accounts on their own or other instances, with ‘independent’ users, employees or bots.

The only thing stopping them is the current fediverse’s insignificance. We’re just not tasty enough, yet. But if we become, how could we disallow them from joining?

Unfortunately, the fact that lemmy isnt in the pact to not federate with meta means history will repeat itself

Even then, i doubt theres enough strong willed people to actually resist big payouts in exchange for access to the federation. Its truly pathetic how people are easily convinced

But XMPP users were presumably still around and outlasted Google and their apps. We’ll be the same even if Facebook churns the protocol, because the whole point of being on Mastodon or KBin is to not be on Facebook.

Perhaps the various concensus theories and mechanisms that came out of crypto could somehow give inspiration on ideas to protect this service from the shitty financial actors that come in and ruin all of the good services.

I’m not saying actually using crypto, just maybe some of their concensus mechanisms/ideas for preventing bad actors could be put in place.

if Google or Meta wants to join they should to us not us to them so if they break federation we should not care and continue implement our stuff

As I understood the article, the danger is that large actors like these are too important too ignore. Too many users, too much content to neglect. So while in theory you are obviously right, in reality there will be a temptation to cater to their needs, because it seems so worthwhile.