Escaping ruling class and corporate domination is one of the reasons some people choose to migrate to the Fediverse. Even some of the other reasons, like ads, engagement obsession, political censorship, content sorting algorithms, can all be traced back to corporate control.

While corporations don’t have much control of the Fediverse today, could they in the future?

One might think that Fediverse is designed to make this impossible. In my opinion, it is only designed to somewhat resist this, but it is still vulnerable to ruling class takeover. The ruling class doesn’t need that now, as they already control all major social networks, and Fediverse remains a niche. But shall that change, they might be out to try to control it. Can they succeed?

I’ll admit and say I am very far from an expert, so I hope someone will correct me if I make any mistakes due to misunderstanding the Fediverse.

Instead of centralizing a social network in a single instance controlled by a single entity, the Fediverse can be federated into multiple instances. However, to host an instance, requires some investment, and although it can be small for some services, it is a barrier that many people choose not to cross.

Hence, as we have already seen, instances are controlled by either organizations or groups who pooled funds for their instance, or individuals who incurred the initial investment themselves. Not bad, so far. However, this does present an issue. If the Fediverse were to grow more instances, people who have money are more capable of starting new instances. It also favors people who don’t live in countries where salaries and cost of living are lower, which would make renting VPS even more expensive to them. This gap is closed as the software gets better and more lightweight, but as it stands, this is how it works.

The other problem is that many Fediverse networks are already sort of centralized, in the sense that there is one (sometimes a handful) of instances that are biggest. This means If someone were to take over just those, they may already have enough control. This is less of a problem for platforms that matured more and have more instances.

If someone like Elon Musk were to go after the biggest instances and either offer money to buy them (which is very likely to work) or somehow pursue censoring the instances that don’t, although that is not as easy as buying a single company (ignoring the cost difference), it is still quite easy. We haven’t seen it because they haven’t sought it yet, but I fear that the Fediverse is not as resistant to this as it should.

  • comfy
    9·
    3 years ago

    If someone like Elon Musk were to go after the biggest instances and either offer money to buy them (which is very likely to work)

    Is it?

    Consider Lemmy. Of the 4 largest instances, 3 are explicitly political. The two anti-capitalist ones won’t sell to a billionaire by principle, and I honestly think wolfballs’ admin would be the kind who understands how corporations and the mega-rich are against their beliefs.

    Consider Mastodon. I don’t have much experience with it but the second biggest instance is run by an anti-capitalist, and most of the big instances I suspect were made by ‘left’ users, with the notable corporate exception of pawoo. I honestly think many or most would block an instance openly controlled by Musk or similar, although that is admittedly a naïve guess.

    People who started those instances are here because they are not there. That’s important. Like someone else said, subversion is a bigger threat I think.

    • CyclohexaneOP
      4·
      3 years ago

      A couple of things:

      • just because they have anti capitalist views doesn’t mean they won’t sell. I agree, it’s way less likely, but it’s not like no socialist has sold off before.
      • this is speaking about the current state of the Fediverse, as a niche space. Many of its users are highly political. This wouldn’t be the case if the Fediverse became more mainstream.
    • TheConquestOfBed
      2·
      3 years ago

      Member when half the fedi decided to block mastodon.social because they didn’t moderate their users?

      • comfy
        1·
        3 years ago

        I wasn’t there, so I don’t. Any blogs about it?

        • TheConquestOfBed
          2·
          3 years ago

          Whelp, I can’t find it. I remember the metaposts but searching doesn’t bring up anything. 😖

          • comfy
            3·
            3 years ago

            That’s alright, I believe it. I just assumed it would be moderated somewhat tightly due to the main dev’s political openness and separation from “alt-tech” instances like Gab.

            Although I did find this little gem from reddit 9 months ago ;)

            • TheConquestOfBed
              2·
              3 years ago

              It’s possible they fixed it since then. I remember there was controversy around the most active mod leaving and the whole instance becoming a cesspit. I knew a few people who left for smaller instances. But Eugen seems to be trying to make the platform more palatable to new people (plus his silly official app that doesn’t have all the features), so I guess he found replacement mods.

      • comfy
        2·
        3 years ago

        It’s the one run by the founder which is being overwhelmed with new users. Just go to the joinmastodon official site to find one big and stable, and compatible with your interests!