Now that for-profit tech companies are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, I think it’s important to establish what we want with the #fediverse and whether federation with #Threads, #Flipboard, Tumblr, and the like bring us closer to or further from those goals.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with a few statements (in no particular order) that describe what I think is an “ideal fediverse” — a fediverse that’s not necessarily realistic but that we should aim for:

  1. No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
  2. Users can move between instances without penalty.
  3. Creating and running an instance requires minimal effort.
  4. People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
  5. There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.

These definitely aren’t comprehensive, and if you have anything you’d add, let’s discuss that! They’re currently helping me reassess my stance on Threads now that Flipboard is also entering the stage, and I hope they’re helpful for others as well.

I’ll elaborate on these five statements in the comments.

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  • ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.socialOP
    2·
    11 months ago
    1. People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.

    If someone isn’t aware that they’re on the fediverse, then they can’t really benefit from the openness and customizability that it provides. A mastodon.social user who knows nothing of the fediverse won’t know that they can move to a different Mastodon instance or interact with the same content using Friendica, as they won’t know that the options exist to begin with.

    Furthermore, people will have more incentive to preserve an open fediverse if they’re aware that it exists. If the fediverse is filled with people who, for example, think that Threads is all there is or didn’t come to Threads with an awareness of the fediverse, the fediverse becomes much easier to undermine.

    1. There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.

    If someone wants to join a closed-source instance run by a for-profit company, they should absolutely be able to. However, that should ideally be because they prefer an instance moderated by Meta, not because the free and open-source alternatives are relatively lacking. Open-source software is extremely important in order for users to have options and agency, so we should aim for these factors to not come with a sacrifice. Otherwise, companies will be able to draw most newcomers to their instance and attain a large share of the content on the fediverse, which is bad as discussed with Statement #1.

    Going by this principle, if the owner over a closed-source fediverse platform starts trying to create exclusive functionality that would attract people their instance, they should be regarded with extreme caution. If you’re familiar with the whole “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” thing, a company doing such would be the “Extend” phase of EEE, and that’s a situation we should avoid at all costs.

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