Found this post super informative as it relates to Mastodon, and thought Lemmy might also benefit from this perspective. I’m not sure I share his optimism, but his points seem sound to dampen some of the alarm bells over Meta joining the Fediverse.
Found this post super informative as it relates to Mastodon, and thought Lemmy might also benefit from this perspective. I’m not sure I share his optimism, but his points seem sound to dampen some of the alarm bells over Meta joining the Fediverse.
Threads being federated fascinates me. In one hand, it ends up being a gateway to mastodon / Lemmy for some. People who grumble about how “evil” Twitter / Facebook is but use it anyhow because “that’s where everyone is” may at least have their toes dipped into those concept and some of that may now see leaving as a viable option to something that isn’t evil as long as they can still see that content. It’s still seems to early to tell.
They might dip their toes in at first. But then you’ll have 9 out of 10 big communities/users on Threads (or probably 99 out of 100 if we’re realistic). And at that point if Meta defederates nobody of those users will care. Threads will become Twitter 2.0 and be its own thing, while Mastodon will be crushed with a tiny user base in comparison (which will get even smaller because most content is on Meta servers, so users switch over to Threads).
I think it will depend on the type of community, whether “the main one” ends up on Threads.
Stuff like FOSS communities will actively avoid threads. It’s just like hipsters avoiding mainstream whatever V2. We’re seeing that same scorn in these threads.
Stuff like “what’s Taylor Swift up to today” communities… 100% threads based.
Really, the only things I think the current Mastodon userbase would care about losing if Meta pulls an inevitable dick move and splits Threads off Fediverse are corporate things.
I’d wager that I’m not the only one who still keeps a Twitter account so I have access to customer support on Twitter for product & services I use. Because, lets face it – customer support on Twitter is almost always better than waiting on hold via the “official” support lines. Those same channels of communication will 100% start showing up in Threads.
But all the popular communities will be on Threads, every single one of them.
Be it tech news (Nvidia, Amd, PcGaming, Hardware, SelfHosted, Linux, …) or entertainment (Memes, Awww, Movies, Music, IAMA, …) and so on. All the content will be there, because all the users are already there. And if a company like Nvidia decides to join and make official posts, guess which instance they’ll make the account on? Or a celebrity wants to do an IAMA, they’ll also create their account on Threads.
Pretty much everything is corporate nowadays. Sure, a few fringe communities might remain in the fediverse outside of Meta, but they are tiny. And the users will be unhappy too, because 99% of their content just got vaporized when Meta defederates.
I can only see this going wrong in the near future.