I suspect the fedi-collective has more negotiating power in this moment than it realizes. We may as well make some asks, see how Meta responds, and they in turn will see how the public, the media and the regulators respond to them in this bold new era of pervasive Big Tech skepticism.
Money can mitigate the risk of Threads:
‘coopting the fediverse’: $200k for Test Suite. ‘overburdening moderators’: $200k for moderation. ‘locking in users’: $200k for Nomadic Identity
A bit of internet reparations.
I appreciate your perspective but will have to respectfully disagree.
My position has evolved as I’ve spent more time as a user in the fediverse and federated protocols such as ActivityPub. The fediverse needs to stay purpose-driven, and not profit-driven. I just don’t see how a for-profit entity can be good stewards of the protocol, their priorities cannot begin or end with anything but return on investment. Even if they were to provide some seed money to other fediverse projects. If their users never migrate to not-for-profit providers, if they never fully federate the other direction, if they fork AP instead of sticking to spec; have we gained anything by federating with them?
Sure seems like by federating with Meta, we just are allowing them to co-opt AP as their version of Bluesky’s ATProto. Those of us on AP that aren’t on threads just become the “data privacy zealots” that aren’t @threads.net and are fenced off from the rest of the network by default. Not unlike the people running their own PDS on bluesky. Federated but not decentralized, isn’t the mission of the fediverse IMO.
But this still begs the opposite question, have we gained anything by de-federating with threads? I sure hope my ideals of a not-for-profit social web, are not as pie-in-the-sky as they seem.
I agree in full!
I’ve thought quite a bit about corporate funding of the fediverse. The only possibility good way that I currently see is if there’s a not-for-profit acting as a middle man to dispense the funds. And that not-for-profit can’t voice opinions on how the fediverse is developed. Even this is wishful thinking.
I’ve actually given thought to creating this non-for-profit but I don’t really know how to get started or get attention for significant donations.