A case for preemptively defederating with Threads ( kbin.social )

atocci , 6 months ago

I would like to make a few counterpoints to yours from the opposite perspective.

To your first point: Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco. We all already left the place that housed the vast majority of the content and went somewhere much slower and quieter. If Threads were to abandon ActivityPub in the future, we would still have the same users who are here now, and if returning the fediverse to it's current level of activity is to be considered a death sentence for it, wouldn't that mean we're already doomed? Things are stable right now though and we have enough activity to sustain a social network as is, so the loss of Threads content wouldn't be our downfall unless a majority of our current users decide its too quiet without them. However, I wouldn't expect the group who left all of Reddit's content behind to be the type who would also abandon their accounts here just because the Threads users aren't here again.

As for the second and third points, the beauty of ActivityPub is that it allows users to choose the services they want to use in order to access the same content across the fediverse, and it wouldn't be right for us to try to dictate how others choose to access an open protocol. If someone who is interested in joining the network decides to do so through Threads, that should be their choice to make, even though I personally think its the wrong one. In all likelihood though, someone making an account on Threads wouldn't have consciously joined the wider fediverse of their own volition anyway. Once they're on though and have a chance to maybe learn a little about these "third party services" they see, they'll make their way to these places instead. Exposure to the fediverse is the best way to understand it from my experience. There have also been a whole host of people who already signed up for Mastodon accounts without understanding a thing about what a federated network entails, they just wanted out of Twitter.

I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks, it's a tool meant to help build a better unified social media network. If we limit who can use the tool, we'll only be hindering the growth of the fediverse.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568 OP , 6 months ago

Thanks for the alternate perspective! However, it doesn't really alleviate my concerns much:

Firstly, the claim "Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco." isn't necessarily true, as the fediverse consists of more than Lemmy and the threads section on Kbin. Threads primarily concerns microblogging, which includes platforms like Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, Friendica, and Kbin. Even so, you could say that all of these people came from similar situations — they all could've chose Twitter or what have you and instead chose the smaller platforms on the fediverse. But does that really mean that they'll stay here? This whole situation is showing that people are desperate for activity, even if that activity means relying on a corporation with interests that go against ours. People have already left following drops in activity — during Ernest's hiatus, the number of active Kbin users plummeted (yes, it was always going to down after the initial rise from the Reddit migration, but Kbin went down a lot, especially compared to Lemmy) and hasn't recovered. Those people, who have tried it and said, "Yeah, this isn't really working," are really hard to get back.

Now, imagine if everyone here got used to the large amount of microblog content provided by Threads, interacted with it a bunch, followed a bunch of Threads accounts, etc. like people are expressing plans to do. If Threads quits federating, thereby making all of that content and connection inaccessible to the rest of the fediverse, do you think people will stick around after that much of an activity drop? No, tons of people are going to follow the 99% of activity and flock to Threads, leaving the open fediverse in a position worse than right now. If you want to give Meta the chance to kill the fediverse's chance of growing to become a legitimate competitor, this is how you do it.

What you say about people having choice is true. If people want to access the fediverse through Threads, that is absolutely their choice. However, another beauty of ActivityPub is that we have the choice over whether we accept interaction with Threads or not. We don't have to become dependent on Meta to carry the fediverse — we can shut them out immediately and grow slowly but surely. If someone wants to join Threads, we aren't under any obligation to show them our content. Instead, saying, "Hey, if you want interaction with us, head over to something that cares about an open fediverse like a Mastodon or Kbin instance," is going to be much better for us long-term.

I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks,
No matter how we view it, Meta views ActivityPub as competition to Threads and rightfully so. The values we currently hold on the fediverse — transparency from moderators & developers, no one instance having control, people having lots of choice, etc. — are values that directly go against Meta's profit whether they join ActivityPub or not. It is in Meta's best interest to pull as many users from here as possible and to nip the fediverse in the bud before it grows. Zuckerberg is not here to play nice, and I can't fathom how anyone would believe so. He does not care about a decentralized, open fediverse. He wants to get as many people on his platform as possible and to make potential competitors less viable, and this is how he can do it.