EnglishMobster

This thread is specific to Kbin, which is why I mention it.

Lemmy doesn't integrate well with the rest of the fediverse at all, period. It's one of the many reasons why I left.

Threads users won't be able to make articles here on Kbin anyway (IIRC); they'd make microblogs. So blocking them would effectively remove them from your microblogs, and if they reply to anything in here I don't think you'll see that either.

At the Extend phase I would encourage fighting back - or at least making it clear that we are separate from Threads and shouldn't copy them.

I wouldn't leave for Threads during Extinguish; I'd stay here. But I would just sit back and mourn what could've been.

Just like how I mourn XMPP whenever I see Pidgin in software center.

Just like how I mourn when my Windows Phone had SMS, Hangouts, and Facebook Messenger all in the stock texting app.

I'll survive. I'm not going to Zuck's site. But I'll be really sad that I'm not going to be able to talk to my friends from anywhere else.

If you want "quality discussion", why are you on here and not Tildes? Tildes' whole purpose is quality discussion. Shouldn't you go for the place where that's being optimized for?

Tildes is a great example, actually. They're small and quiet and want to be quiet. They don't want to take off. You can get through Tildes in an hour.

That's why I get bored of Tildes easily. I don't want to just be one-and-done with a site. I want to constantly be discovering new things. I want to see number go up (to an extent). I want to read a bunch of comments, some insightful, some dumb.

If I'm going to post something, I don't want to post it to Tildes. I'll get a slow trickle of comments and replies, people replying to a week-old post with something I've long stopped thinking about.

I worry that if defederation comes and severs the fediverse in two, engagement will go down. Mastodon.social isn't part of the fedipact, and likely won't be. Everywhere that relies on content from Mastodon.social - which is a lot of them, non-techies don't want to find a specific instance - will have a lot less content, very suddenly.

People like me who love refreshing feeds will see the torrent of posts slowly... come... to... a... stop. People like me will get bored - where are all the posts? Why can't I see the creators I really like?

"Well, they're on a server that federates with a server that federates with Meta."

So you'll just be left with those in the fedipact. People who are used to the fast-moving feed (like me) will get frustrated. There's a reason why I left Mastodon in 2019ish and why I left Lemmy in 2020 - they got boring quickly (well, Lemmy was also full of tankies). I left Tildes because it got boring quickly too.

I'm in this sort of industry. I'm not going to reveal much about what I specifically do, but I know that most people want something that is new and exciting and moves fast. It draws them in and causes them to spend most of their time there.

When that feed slows down, they spend less time on that site. When they have enough experiences of "opening the app just to close it again", they'll eventually remove it from their home screen (or bookmarks). Then it gets forgotten about.

When the user forgets about a site, it gets less content. In turn, that makes the content even slower. In turn, that drives more people away, except for the die-hards who love slow discussions (like Tildes or 2019-era Mastodon).

Where are the people who left going to go? Well, they might go to where their creators were - somewhere like Mastodon.social. Or they'll leave entirely, or they'll move to Bluesky or Threads.

A lot of those options aren't healthy for the broader fediverse, so you'll just have this one branch that is dominated by Meta and the other which slowly dies as people leave due to increasingly stale content. If they were united, they might've stood a chance against Meta if/when Meta made an anti-competitive move... but divided they're a lot easier for Meta to scoop up and slowly extinguish, XMPP-style.

Again, the fedipact is doing Meta's dirty work for them.

Asynchronously talking to people? Not really. Or, I should say - not any where I'm able to contact those people.

While I have some of their phone numbers, I don't have all of them - and they're not likely to text me pictures of their new baby.

While I know a couple on Discord, that's far less than the number of people I know.

I don't think I know any of their email addresses. And this isn't the early 2000s where email chains are a thing anyway.

It's nice to be able to see what old friends are doing. I haven't talked to some of these people for years. A lot of them came from my time working at Disneyland; sometimes we were close friends; other times we just traded a couple shifts. Still others were just times we spent closing together, chatting about nothing and everything. I treasure their interactions and I want to see how they're doing - but I don't want to directly use Facebook.

Threads gives me the ability to check in on them from right here on Kbin. I don't need to leave this site. I don't need to give my info to Zuck. I just shoot them a follow, maybe send a message if they have to manually accept follow requests. I don't want Kbin to defederate because it'll take that from me for no good reason. (As I've stated elsewhere, the fedipact is self-defeating and we should fight at the "extend" stage, not the "embrace" one.)

I don't want to enter Facebook's walled garden, and right now the power of the fediverse is that I don't have to. The fedipact wants to change that - in their ideal world, I would have to. They won't stop Facebook, but they would be a pain in the ass for everyone who disagrees with their approach (again - fight "extend", not "embrace!"!), and there's a good chance their short-sightedness will destroy the fediverse.

But today, the fediverse is a collection of open websites. If Facebook wanted data collection they could just set up their own private instance with some innocent name and nobody would be any the wiser. They have nothing to gain from me interacting with someone on the fediverse; even if that someone is using their site, that person will likely be using their site regardless.

It really doesn't make any sense to enforce this stupid restriction of "defederate anyone who federates with Meta". There's nothing for anyone to gain, and a lot to lose. That's the main thing I have issues with. (I also don't think Kbin should defederate from Threads to begin with because it's meant to cast a wide net. You can make your own instance with tighter moderation if that's what you want - see Beehaw - or you can block the Threads domain. They're only on the "microblog" tab anyway unless they're replying to something they follow here.)

To an extent, but morality is important to me too.

I don't use Facebook because they corrupt democracy. I don't use Twitter because Elon Musk is a wannabe fascist. I don't use Reddit because they have refused to clamp down on bad actors and have directly insulted their users.

If everyone defederates from Threads, I won't use Threads, because I don't use Facebook. My morals are more important to me than audience size.

But... as things stand, once Threads federates with the wider world, I will be able to interact with my friends without letting Zuck near me. In a most ideal world, they'd be able to follow me here on Kbin and I can follow them back. I'd see their posts in the Microblog feed and sorted into magazines, and I can like and comment and boost without logging into Zuck's website and letting him have my data again.

You can say that's supporting Facebook. Maybe. But if Threads is truly federated, then Facebook would basically be able to go anywhere regardless; in that sense I'd be supporting Threads whether I was talking to someone directly or not.

And in that sense, I totally see why people say "we shouldn't federate with Meta, they're evil and they're selfish and they're going to destroy the fediverse." I can understand why people personally would want to choose somewhere that doesn't do that. I don't think this instance should block Meta because it's large and general-purpose, but somewhere like Beehaw where that sort of thing is part of the mission statement... I get it.

But from my perspective, I am given the chance to talk to a large group of people; people who share the same interests as me; people I know in real life. People who would see my stuff - but (more importantly) I'd also see theirs. And I'm sure most people feel the same way; they're going to where the people are. This'll naturally create an audience, one that gives a wide variety of fresh content and also responds to content you give.

I'd much rather have that then return to 2020-era Mastodon where you'd be lucky to get 3 interactions to a Toot, and you'd see everything there is to see in 15 minutes (at most).

Then why does Threads advertise ActivityPub support during its onboarding if it's not going to go for ActivityPub?

Can you cite your sources where Meta is forcing people to sign a legal agreement to federate, or are you just going from your gut?

do you know how FB or instagram work? Do you think that when you post, your post reaches your whole audience?

Of course not. But it doesn't on Mastodon either. Or Kbin. Or even Lemmy.

If someone is on vacation when I make my post on Mastodon, there is a good chance they will never see it. The post isn't going to be recommended to them - the feed is chronological. They would have to specifically search me out and scroll way back to see my posts.

If my post doesn't make it to "Hot" on Kbin or Lemmy, by default it dies. The only ones who will see it are those sorting by "New". That's a fraction of the complete audience. That's just how algorithms work.

Facebook and Twitter have their own recommendation algorithm of some kind. Threads does too, from what I've seen of it. While I wouldn't expect my stuff to go viral, frankly my friends are more likely to care and react to a post I make there. I don't use Facebook anymore, but I had plenty of interactions when I did use it. You will never reach your entire audience unless your entire audience reaches out for you - but on average the people I know are more likely to care about me than some strangers on my Mastodon instance. So I'd rather post where they can see it.

So, you've read the history of XMPP. Did you understand what google practically did?

Yes, that was... like, my entire point. Everything you just described will happen with or without the fedipact. If Meta has plans to go through with EEE, they will do it no matter what. Even if everyone defederated from them, they'd still build on ActivityPub in weird ways and break the protocol over time.

But we know that not everywhere will defederate with them. So what will happen is you're going to have a splinter group defederated anywhere that federates with Meta (or federates with somewhere that federates with Meta) and you're going to have... well, everyone else.

People are going to leave and go to the side that federates with Meta, because that's where the network effect is strongest. Again, I don't care that someone on my Mastodon instance got married. I mean, congratulations, I guess... but if my childhood best friend is getting married, I'm more invested. I don't want to use Meta's stuff if I have another option; after all, I did quit Instagram and Facebook cold turkey. But I would jump at the ability to have those moments while still keeping Zuck off my computer.

So, like I said, this is going to lead to 2 fediverses. One that federates with Meta, and one that doesn't. And "normal" non-techie people are going to want to go to where they get the most eyeballs on their stuff - that means somewhere that federates with Meta.

Meta could still start extending and extinguishing. But they could do that anyway. That is a completely separate subject from the fedipact as designed. I agree that it's a problem, but the fedipact being executed will only speed up the process, bisecting the entire project and turning it back into a niche thing for nerds. You know, like XMPP or IRC.

Staying away from meta is a decision in the basis of protecting the whole project.

Staying away from Meta literally has zero impact on what Meta does. Meta will do whatever.

The choice is if Mastodon tries to adapt to be compatible or not. Breaking ActivityPub for compatibility with Meta is a losing proposition, and one that we shouldn't even start. But that's the fight we should be having; holding firm if/when Meta stops holding to the standard.

The fedipact is self-defeating and won't stop Meta from being Meta. The only thing the fedipact will do is ruin the fediverse writ large. The true way to preventing an XMPP situation is by having maintainers hold firm and act just as they did before Meta joined; no feature creep, no goalpost moving. Break EEE at "extend", not "embrace".

That isn't what I'm saying. You can still ban individual users here on Kbin. I don't like LibsOfTikTok either, but I can ban them from all my magazines if I wish. I can block them personally.

Are you advocating for blocking anywhere that has any kind of extremist accounts of any kind? Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works have open sign-ups; if LibsOfTikTok joined either of those would you want Kbin to defederate from all of Lemmy.world?

The vast majority of people on Threads are normal people. Extremists exist, yes - just as they existed on Twitter, and Reddit, and Mastodon.social, and Lemmy.world, and anywhere that has a large number of users with easy sign-ups. Heck, I'm sure Kbin has some too.

I don't personally think that those relatively small number of accounts is worth the harm that will be caused by bisecting the entire fediverse. And where do you draw the line? If Google got into the fediverse game, would you want to defederate from them, too? What about Amazon? Apple? Disney? Wikipedia?

If you want to get away from that, you're welcome to frequent another instance that has that moderation style. I already see you're not here on Kbin; I can't speak to the rules of your instance but I am completely fine with your instance defederating from Meta if it wants to be a small community. Beehaw is another great example of somewhere that will aggressively defederate to remain small; I am sure they will defederate from Threads as well.

As for your second point, I can give you my perspective. I chose Kbin because I want to spend all day on a site scrolling away. I don't like seeing stale content. I don't like being constrained to a small community where nothing happens.

If the fediverse splits, we will go back to 2020-era Mastodon. It will be a bunch of niche communities without much in the way of updates. You'll read your whole feed in a few minutes, and then you need to find something else to do. That's probably healthy, but it's not somewhere that will keep me coming back (there's a reason why I never use my Mastodon account).

The other half will have constant updates. A new feed every refresh. If I post something, I'll get a bunch of likes and follows and comments straight away. It's an incredible dopamine hit, each time.

If given the choice... why would I choose the slow one? The one where I'll get... maybe 3 likes from some strangers. The one that doesn't have my friends or family or anyone I actually know.

I realize not everyone agrees, but I've been around the block to know that people crave the network effect and will go to where it is strongest. It's why the Mastodon Migration failed. The only reason why Lemmy/Kbin is taking off is because Reddit's moderation team is actively ruining Reddit's network effect. And one of the reasons why Threads is taking off is because Elon just destroyed Twitter's network effect.

I think misunderstand. I do understand that. I used XMPP. I've read that article.

My argument is that the fedipact, if executed as desired by the people running it, will defederate from Meta and anywhere that federates with Meta.

So now you have 2 fediverses, completely separated from one another. One side has Meta; the other doesn't. If I want to post something and I want people to see it and react to it, I will post it to the side with more people. If I want to scroll endlessly without needing to stop and refresh or wait because the feed is stale, I will look at the side with more people.

The other side - the fedipact side - will slowly become stale and niche. There will always be hardcore users - people still use XMPP - but it will fade into what it was in 2020 and 2021. My Lemmy account - @EnglishMobster - is from 2020. My original Mastodon account is even older. I've seen this place grow and blossom into what it is now, and the fedipact is threatening that growth. People will leave the side of the fedipact and join the side without it... which is to say, the side dominated by Meta.

Instead of a big wide fediverse with open source projects living alongside random PeerTube creators living alongside movie stars... we have 1 niche one and 1 dominated by a large corporation. It's literally the same result as if Meta went through with Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... but done without the "extend" or "extinguish", a massive "own goal" by the FOSS community.

And worse - it doesn't stop Facebook from going through with "extend" or "extinguish" later. It literally just destroys communities for no reason, leaving us in the exact same situation that XMPP is in today.

I am fine with an instance saying "we won't federate with Threads". I'd rather it not be Kbin, of course, but I will move to an instance that does federate because my friends are important to me.

I am not fine with me being held hostage for that. I don't want to join Threads directly if I can avoid it; I'd rather use my Kbin account. But the fedipact is trying to make that impossible by saying "we will defederate anywhere that federates with Threads".

I'm saying 3 things:

1. Facebook is going to do whatever they want regardless. They are a business, and they are in the business of making money. I don't like Facebook. I don't appreciate Facebook. I don't use Facebook (or Instagram, or WhatsApp...). Facebook will always do what is best for Zuck, and if Zuck leans into EEE that is what Facebook will do no matter what.

2. Right now, Facebook is giving me a chance to interact with my friends without using Facebook. That's huge; my friends don't share my anti-Facebook beliefs and are all still on there. I'd love to reconnect but want to do it on my terms. Federation allows that.

3. The fedipact is going to do more harm than good. It won't stop Facebook from doing what they want to do, as per point 1. If Facebook goes down the path of EEE (which we can guess but is technically not guaranteed - see how the Matter protocol is taking off), then Facebook will execute EEE with or without the fedipact. But the fedipact does Facebook's work for them by inherently splitting the fediverse into a "Facebook side" and a "fedipact side". This split is not healthy and many people will choose the side with a larger network effect - i.e. Facebook. Thus this accomplishes the same thing as EEE without Facebook doing anything other than Embracing.

Facebook is allowed to do what they want because they are a business with billions of dollars. They've done horrible shit but they're also mainstream, where my friends hang out and where the celebrities are.

If the fedipact didn't exist, I would be able to freely interact with the people on Facebook without needing to download Zuck's data vacuum. I'd be able to see my friends and talk to my friends without having to deal with all the... Facebook parts.

The fedipact threatens that because it will cause large communities (like Fosstodon, which has many open-source projects I follow) to defederate themselves from anywhere that federates with Threads. This splits the fediverse badly and in the fedipact's best-case scenario (for them) the only way I could even talk to my friends is by downloading and installing Zuck's app. I'd rather not.

That's fair, but I personally want my social media to be "everybody".

That's actually what brought me here to Kbin - I loved that it had Mastodon integration and connected everybody to everybody else.

I was originally on Beehaw, which is very much trying to capture that "Discord with my friends" feel. And that's totally fine; I understand that and respect it and think it's valid.

But the point is that we have options. Kbin especially is great because these options can happen at a user level; you can go in and block entire instances from your user account, and it'll be just as if that instance was defederated. Admins don't need to maintain a short allowlist or a large denylist; you can curate it to your comfort level on your own.

But I'll also recognize that it's not inherently a small community - you're taking a big community and slicing off parts of it, which isn't the same. But there are spots for that cozy feeling across the fediverse if that's what you want. I just don't think a broad flagship instance like Kbin.social should be one of those spots.

That's fair, reading it again I see I misunderstood you. :)

I apologize if I seemed hostile; I just get frustrated with people wanting to block whole instances here without cause (like the instance being primarily trolls or hate speech). On Lemmy it makes sense since only the admins can block domains (and it applies to everyone), but Kbin allows domain-level blocking on an individual level so it makes a lot less sense here.