How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) écrit par Ploum, Lionel Dricot, ingénieur, écrivain de science-fiction, développeur de logiciels libres.

This blog post by Ploum, who was part of the original XMPP efforts long ago, describes how Google killed one great federated service, which shows why the Fediverse must not give Meta the chance

  • BaroqueInMind@kbin.social
    48·
    1 year ago

    Bing AI summary:

    The blog post “How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse)” by Ploum discusses how the GAFAM empire controls the internet in 2023, except for a few small villages that resist the oppression and form the "Fediverse"¹. The Fediverse gains fame and attention through debates around Twitter and Reddit¹. The post also discusses how capitalists are against competition and how Facebook has been careful to kill every competition by buying companies that could become competitors¹. However, the Fediverse cannot be bought because it is an informal group of servers discussing through a protocol (ActivityPub) and running different software¹. The post also discusses how Google made XMPP irrelevant by joining the XMPP federation¹.

    Source: Conversation with Bing, 6/23/2023
    (1) How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse). https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html.
    (2) How To Kill Poa Annua (Annual Bluegrass): Your Step-By-Step Guide. https://www.domyown.com/how-to-kill-poa-annua-grass-a-572.html.
    (3) How to Kill Clover in Your Lawn | Scotts. https://scotts.com/en-us/how-to/how-to-kill-clover-in-your-lawn.html.

    • therealpygon@kbin.social
      11·
      1 year ago

      A luke-warm summary with comical references that only summarizes the first few paragraphs. I hope people don’t only read that summary and think “but that was Google”.

      The article is a warning that given a chance, based on the past actions of Microsoft, Google, other corporations and even Meta itself, allowing Meta to participate in any way with ActivityPub will most likely kill ActivityPub. There is no easier way to ensure profits than by killing any hint of competition that might take users away from their services. This is almost always achieved by seemingly “bearing gifts” in the form of users or financial backing. By participating, they will really be trying to prevent users from exploring other options at all. Once they have prevented the majority of users from leaving their platform, and have become “the” largest player in the ActivityPub space, they will have successfully made alternatives irrelevant. They will then kill these connections, excising the competition from participating in the new “ActivityPub”, forcing projects to be abandoned by the users who want to continue participating where everyone else is. It’s a highly effective strategy that plays off uses FOMO and project enthusiasts aspirations. The fact that people are even considering this might be a good thing is proof that the strategy works, which is why they use it.