lvxferre

Most people don't even know what's a proprietary image format. From their PoV it would be "shitty broken Mastodon doesn't show images properly". And they would still pressure Mastodon users to switch.

if Threads won’t display in a browser they’ve just blown one of their legs off.

I'm not sure but I think that a similar strategy could work for browsers, using a web plugin.

But even if Meta decided that Threads is unavailable from browsers, it wouldn't be blowing one of Threads' legs off. There are far more mobile than desktop users nowadays; and if they want to EEE the Fediverse, they need numbers for that.

I'm a mix of OK and not-OK.

The good: I'm excited with Xmas + New Years' Eve. It's just family but I always get hyped up. Learning how to paint oil on canvas. Got nice gifts for my family, "nice" not as "expensive" but as "things that they'll enjoy".

The bad: lots of things to do. Juggling the will of five people and two cats for the festivities, as I'm the one cooking most of it. (Yes, the cats will get treats. Yoghurt for one, shredded chicken breast for another.) Work is also extra hard those days.

The ugly: I hate summer. Insect thinks that my desk is a love hotel, my feet get swollen, 13:00 and I turn into mush, my cats get more nocturnal so late night/early morning they're "MEOW, MEOW" = "stop sleeping and play with me, stupid human". At a certain point in my life I seriously considered buying a house in the Alps so I didn't need to deal with summers any more.

Note: I did read your comment fully, but I'm going to address specific points, otherwise the discussion gets too long. (Sorry!)

“Some data format” is still a pretty vague handwave [...]

It is vague because there are multiple ways for Threads to screw with the Fediverse through data formats. But if you want a more specific example:

Let's say that Meta creates a new image format called TREDZ. It fills the same purpose as JPG, but it's closed source. The Threads app has native support for TREDZ images, but your browser doesn't render it.

If you access a Mastodon instance through Threads, everything works well, since the Threads app has support for other image formats. However, since your browser and current Mastodon apps have no support for TREDZ, pics in this format fail to render. You get broken content as a result, and probably some Threads crowds screeching at you because you ignored their picture, saying "u uze mastadon? lmaaao its broken it doesnt even pictures lol", encouraging you to ditch your instance to join Threads instead.

And you might say "reverse engineer TREDZ, problem solved". However:

• reverse engineering is costly and time-consuming
• Meta has professional coders in a paycheck, Mastodon relies mostly on volunteers
• Meta could easily encumber TREDZ with all sorts of nasty legal shit, like parents, and aggressively defend them.

As such, on a practical level, it would be not feasible to reverse-engineer TREDZ. And even if it was, the time necessary to do so is time that Threads is still causing damage to Mastodon.

Of course, this is just an example that I made up on the spot. Meta can think on more efficient ways to do so.

I’m sure that Meta would just love to be able to push a button that made all their competitors die. [...]

Yup. As you said, everyone wants that button. But due to the difference in power, Meta is closer to get that button than Mastodon is.

the Fediverse seems pretty solid against attack to me.

The protocol might be solid, but the community isn't. Communities stronger than the Fediverse died; and the Fediverse has the mixed blessing of decentralisation - the death of a part doesn't drag the other parts to the grave, but the survival of the other parts doesn't help much the dying one either.

The difference is the same as between boiling a frog* by throwing it in hot water, versus throwing it in cold water and heating it slowly.

In the defederated scenario, people resist to ditch Mastodon and go to Threads, for ideological reasons. The only ones who'd do it are the ones who are pissed at Twitter alone, and short-sighted enough to not realise that the issue with Twitter applies to traditional social media as a whole.

In the federated scenario, however, that resistance has been slowly degraded. Because Mastodon users are already interacting with Threads users, forging social bonds with them, and they'll try to avoid to lose those bonds.

I’m more worried about the load if it truly gets big and mastodon and threads interact a lot, tbh.

I'm a bit worried about this, too. You toot something, it gets insanely popular, and now Threads users hug your instance to death, the old Slashdot effect.

*inb4 boiled frogs are bad science, but a good analogy.

I fully agree that it doesn't matter for Lemmy right now. The issue is mostly Mastodon and Kbin, as both compete directly with Threads; and in a smaller scale Friendica, Matrix and PixelFed as they compete with FB/WhatsApp/IG.

The main reason why I support defederation is to not have users in Mastodon relying on contacts and content from Threads at all. Because, once Threads pulls off the plug (eventually they will want to), Mastodon won't be some small but stable network; it'll be a shrinking one, and that's way worse.

South Korea will soon require companies that slim down products to show the old and new sizes on packaging

This is helpful but not enough. Brazil implemented a similar law a long time ago... and people simply do the same as Kim Young-hee, they keep buying it.

Sorry for the wall of text.

What specific features do you have in mind that could be implemented in a closed-source manner that couldn’t be reverse-engineered and implemented by open-source instance software too?

The features don't need to be impossible to reverse engineer; they could be costly enough to do so, rely on other FB/Meta platforms, or demand server capabilities past what you'd expect from typical Mastodon instances. For example:

• implementing some data format that is decoded by the front-end
• allowing you to access content from FB/IG/WhatsApp from Threads
• "we now allow big arse videos".

and it’s unclear what benefit it would serve Meta that they can’t accomplish by just not joining the Fediverse in the first place.

Killing a bird and a baby mammoth with a single stone, before they grow and invade your turf.

On one side you have Twitter/X; it bleeds money and Musk is an idiot, but he has enough money to throw at the problems until they go away, and he has a "vishun" about an "errything app" that would clearly compete with FB/IG/WhatsApp. On another you have the Fediverse; it's small and negligible but it has potential for unrestricted growth, and already includes things like Matrix (that competes with WhatsApp) and Friendica (that competes with FB).

From Meta's point of view, Twitter/X is by far the biggest threat. It could be addressed without federation, but by doing so would feed Mastodon, and a stronger Mastodon means a stronger Fediverse and this power would put Matrix, Friendica etc. in a better position. With federation however they can EEE one while killing another, and still advertise the whole thing as "I don't understand, why you say that we have a monopoly over online communication? We're even part of a federation? Meta plays nice with competitors. I'm so confused~".

Suddenly the sale of porn games in Steam skyrockets.

Portuguese ⟨bisonho⟩. I always used it as "needy", "demanding excessive attention" (like a child). Until someone informed me that it was supposed to be "weird".

They might not be inherently bad, but they'll be likely bad depending on how it's done, and Facebook isn't to be trusted.

Just for the sake of example:

• What if Threads develops features that work well with the ActivityPub protocol, but since they're closed-source they cannot be implemented by Mastodon instances?
• What if Threads implements asymmetric federation - where Threads users can interact with outsiders' content, but outsiders cannot interact with Threads' content?
• What if Threads has some bullshit term of agreement like "by using our platform you agree to have your data collected, and if you're seeing this you're already using our platform"?
• etc.

Note that Facebook has a long story of user-hostile decisions; as in, this crap wouldn't be below its moral standards. So, while most of the time this would be FUD, in this case it's just F, no uncertainty or doubt.

I think that Facebook is trying to kill the Fediverse and Twitter, before either becomes a real competitor.

It makes sense when you look at the big picture; Facebook's power is mostly Facebook itself (connecting people), Instagram (sharing pictures), and WhatsApp ("private" [eh] messaging). Microblogging has a small market in comparison with those three, but it opens a door to them - so both the Fediverse and Twitter have room to expand right into FB's turf.

So in the case of the Fediverse, if my reasoning is correct (dunno), the third "E" would be the traditional "extinguish", not "exploit" as proposed in the OP.

Whether any of the rumored clothing sewn from scalps will ever be recovered is another matter.

Sorry for the game ref, but this immediately reminds me RimWorld. One of the gruesome things that players do in the game is to use human leather for random stuff like cowboy hats, armchairs, or even dusters in a pinch.

Trivia: there's a currently endangered language called Ossetian, that is most likely related to the languages spoken by the Scythians - either a direct descendant of one, or of a close relative.