Unfortunately vlemmy also seems to be leaning towards blocking Meta: https://vlemmy.net/comment/639289
[edit]
In the light of the downvotes:
Is your email server refusing connections from Google because you're worried about SMTP being taken over by evil corporations?
I mean, if you do then cool. I want to email my grandma sometimes so I look for one that doesn't.
Don't know about Android but on iOS health information is something that an app can request on OS level.
There are valid uses for this, for example hearing level measurements from third party app can be added to Health app and then used for adjusting equalizer for AirPods via accessibility options. Or your menstrual cycle (although that probably won't make your AirPods sound better) or many other data points. This is what Threads is trying to access.
Given that pretty much every instance that I know of is hell-bent on never federating with commercial entities, are there any that don't have an issue with it?
It looks like I'll have to move and I don't even know where to.
It's not about what you post but what data will Threads/Twitter/FB apps will trick you into sharing on system level (location etc).
I like author bio:
Lev Golinkin (...) His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in (...)
What's Ukraine crisis? Do they mean genocidal war that russian nazis wage against Ukraine?
Alternative source: Freed Ukrainian prisoners of war call for support against Russia (Stanford Daily, Oct. 3, 2022)
Back in the day, like many people then, I had a couple of different accounts across multiple messaging platforms. 2 domestic ones, couple of international ones. It was a fun mess but people were tired of running multiple apps and so loads of multi-protocol apps were developed.
Usually messaging protocols were simply reverse engineered and some apps also used plug-ins so that niche protocols could be added by community. Some also did gateways that translated proprietary protocols to XMPP.
By the end of that era many platforms opened themselves up with XMPP. It was nice because most of those multi-protocol apps didn't have to support as many different platforms explicitly.
But that's about it. I had a Google Talk account too and found it cute that I can use it to add my friends on other platforms. I was a nerdbut barely knew any other people that were utilizing it. Realistically it didn't make any difference because you still had to use multi-protocol app for the ones that didn't open.
Soon platforms that were never on or barely on XMPP started to take over. Messenger was the biggest in my country and it was always a PITA on third party apps.
Google Talk doing a rug pull on XMPP didn't to anything meaningful to XMPP itself. It was never that big and simply remains a niche to this day.
I too get an impression that a single article on XMPP Gtalk drama made round on Fediverse that many made their opinion solely on it.
I don't think Mastodon allows user blocking instance either but I don't see why that can not change in the future.
I'm not sure forcing open source on other instances is the right way to go. I imagine that in the future there could be instances that offer more polished experience, maybe a really nice proprietary app, that are commercially funded. As long as we have open alternatives and interoperability then we should be fine. In terms of privacy it's a matter of regulations.
I also fully respect choice of some instances to defederate from commercial platforms but in a rational environment it would be akin to subset of Linux users opting to use free software only with no binary blobs and things like that. Perfectly reasonable thing to do if that's what your ethics / philosophy dictates. Just don't think it's something that is a net benefit to average person.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
Embrace an open standard by using it yourself, start extending it at a pace competitors can't (preferably obfuscating how it works), leave everyone behind.
A good example is Microsoft Internet Explorer back in the day. Web technologies like HTML and CSS are open standards and at the time fairly straightforward. Once Microsoft hit critical mass by bundling IE with Windows they took leadership from Netscape and started adding more and more proprietary crap like ActiveX which some sites opted to use because everyone was using IE anyway and people using other browsers were forced to use IE. This was also a major issue for Linux users at the time.
It took years of regulatory / antitrust pressure, tremendous effort from Mozilla and their browsers, as well as big players like Google and Apple embracing KHTML (later forked into WebKit and then Blink engines) to unscrew humanity from that depressing era of internet history.
Web browsers working slightly differently is still an issue without anyone breaking compatibility on purpose. It was just so much worse when someone did it maliciously.
Examples of the “do’s” - Gatekeeper platforms will have to:
- allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations
Example of the “don'ts” - Gatekeeper platforms may no longer:
- treat services and products offered by the gatekeeper itself more favourably in ranking than similar services or products offered by third parties on the gatekeeper's platform
- prevent consumers from linking up to businesses outside their platforms
- track end users outside of the gatekeepers' core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted
So many knee-jerk reactions.
This is an open protocol with complete freedom to create apps and scripts. If this becomes an issue users could block certain interactions in a granular manner, for example block replies from certain instances.
XMPP being thrown around as an example makes me think people who do it weren't there to witness it. XMPP by itself wasn't really used by many but there were also many more popular messaging platforms at the time. XMPP wasn't killed because it wasn't ever alive other than short golden era when it was mostly a way to open itself to third party clients (Gaim, Trillian, Adium etc) which was very nice.
Next year EU is going to make all tech giants open in this way again. Mastodon can EEE Threads too by being a better implementation. It has no commercial pressure and Activity Pub and formatting tweets is not as complex as a web browser engine or a word processor document format which are way better examples of successful EEE.
If you defederate you'll end up exactly where XMPP is.
Will Meta try to fuck over Fediverse? Very likely.
Is it mutually beneficial to be federated? Yes.
Mastodon will never be the biggest player around for microblogging because too many people nope out when presented with server selection, even with defaults.
Take whatever users you can now. Threads app has no "following" chronological timeline, probably never will. Show people you can do that from Mastodon and it's clients.
It's likely that one of the reasons Meta is using Activity Pub is upcoming EU regulations on electronic platform gatekeepers. They will have to open them in some way anyway. It's likely regulators will be checking if Meta is playing nice with Threads.
Threads can try to EEE Mastodon but so can Mastodon. Mastodon can fuck over Threads in many ways too, mostly by providing better experience and it's better than isolating.
Can you tell me how did Google extend XMPP?