this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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Fediverse

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The fediverse is now something that you can evangelize about. Its turning into a buzzword ...

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Bottom line: is threads a potential entry-point into the fediverse for a lot of people who otherwise would not be aware/ interested? ABSOLUTELY YES.

Does that benefit offset the catastrophic harm it will do by overwhelming the fediverse with corporate interests, stacking nonprofits with Meta-friendly officers, and exerting leverage on Activity Pub development? NO WAY.

fediblock.

[–] confuser 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

i dont know how email survived, i bet whatever happened there is what will make it work too

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

(Federated) email didn't survive. It got completely subsumed by the major providers who now have control over everything email related. It's now impossible to run your own email server since none of the major providers will deliver your email without your mail server having first built a reputation.

The fediverse analogy would be if 99.9999% of users were on Threads and you couldn't interact with any of those users from any of the small independent fediverse servers. Frankly, that's exactly what it looks like is happening.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

none of the major providers will deliver your email without your mail server having first built a reputation

There are definitely major, and easily-abusable "features" being implemented by the major email providers, but I don't think your statement is correct. I have a Hetzner server, and I can receive email from it (to Gmail) just fine, as long as I have SPF, DMARC, and DKIM set up. I can also create a new server with a new IP and not have any issues. The issues may arise with shared IPs/ranges that are also being used by spammers. Otherwise, if you're planning to send bulk email you just need to warm up the IP.

[–] confuser 5 points 2 months ago

i think you may be mixing federated and small-web feel there. there exists the ability for individuals to have functioning email servers although it is difficult but fair considering how much of the world is reliant upon it and opposing it with various kinds of attacks. i dont thimk it requires many individuals to have their own servers for it to be considered federated, the fact that we have dozens of relatively big email providers to choose from who prioritize various different things is enough to cover the majority of peoples needs and i think that is the threshold requirement for a sufficient self sustaining federated network. regardless of that, if you compare this outcome of email as of present to lets just say a platform like discord whose goal is to facilitate messaging between people, you can evidently say thst emails outcome is better than the proprietary service that discord is locking people into and not making alternatives ways of accessing the service a simpler process.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Would be interested in an intelligent rebuttal to this seemingly decent argument, if anyone has one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

You realize the second part would also happen if the Fediverse "takes off", yes? Then naturally companies would come in and trivially take things over as there's money to be made.

It's a natural end state until governments can be made to curb corporate freedom.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Before billion dollar companies move in, we need to see governments, universities, and journalists on the platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think thats unlikely. If the fediverse wants it or not, its growth is now heavily dependent on Meta

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Ah yes of course. Both Meta and Bluesky have far outrun any federated-short-blogging effort of the Fediverse, and as a result companies will rather want to monetize those. But this is also the paradoxical situation of people in here who both want "the Fediverse to succeed" and "keep corporate interests out of the Fediverse": Either won't happen.

Right now it looks more like this'll remain a hyper-specialized place for specific discussions, Mastodon more so. You can go there for false dichotomies in regards to browser development feedback for example, or for dejected Youtube actual-content-creators getting yelled at for engaging with their community.

But it seems it'll stay at that. However, this also keeps any monetary interest away from it, so that's good. Of course, should this ever change and the Fediverse grows more welcoming and that works and it grows bigger, of course the moment users move in (in numbers), advertisers, astroturfers and all will move in with them. That's just a given.

And partially why I hate this "Just block'em!"-approach to Threads: It assumes the stick-your-fingers-into-your-ears-and-ignore-the-issue approach would ever be an actual solution to any problem. And then when you run into an issue you cannot avoid that way, you have fuck all experience doing something actionable about it, as you've never tried before.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I thought Threads was for people who thought Mastodon was too complicated. What's all this "turn on sharing" mess?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The official story is that Meta is worried about being sued by people suddenly seeing their content pushed to some random website without their consent if it's enabled by default, so they won't risk enabling it by default. At least not before the fediverse is huge enough that everything you post going everywhere on the internet is the expected behaviour.

Fair enough really. I wouldn't want to be sued for that either, and they obviously cannot expect Congress to understand.. anything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have Facebook not heard of the Internet? Anyone can right click save as.

I am very skeptical that Facebook is doing federated to be nice, only to keep digital markets act off Facebooks back.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Have Facebook not heard of the Internet? Anyone can right click save as.

They have, old politicians haven't

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

That's why Facebook were able to buy Instagram and WhatsApp without issue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Threads is for whoever Meta can sell it to, and I think it was pretty far along in its development before they actually committed to ActivityPub support.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago

Step 1. Built Internet to get away from TV

Step 2. Corporate Greed TV moves over and ruins Internet.

Step 3. Build New Internet to escape Old Internet Ruined by TV bloodsuckers.

Step 4. Go back to step 2 and replace tech names with next itteration.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ahh yes the platform that is defedirated by every fediverse instance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Except it's not deferderated by everyone.