• Prethoryn Overmind
    link
    English
    25
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Can someone ELI5 what this means for Lemmy, Mastadon, and other platforms that are federated?

    I thought the point of federations was to allow server instances the ability to prevent other instances from interacting with one another?

    Couldnt servers just block or prevent Threads from interacting with them?

    Just reading this? I don’t understand how this truly changes anything at all. Why is everyone concerned? The API isn’t owned by Zuck but open for usage.

    • Jeffool
      link
      English
      56
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The fear is a practice called “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” (or EEE). It’s been used by tech companies before: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

      It, in theory, could work like this:

      1. Meta embraces ActivityPub in its tech in an attempt to garner good will and make it easy for users to transition to Threads.

      2. Meta extends on ActivityPub by saying "oh we’re just adding a few things that make this better for our users (on our service) but we’re still supporting ActivityPub!

      3. Meta then extinguishes ActivityPub support, and severally hobbles AP, after they secure enough users to be happy and think AP offers no real competition anymore.

      Then the enshittification process begins, by moving the focus from users to other interests (usually advertisers) at the expense of users. And eventually to the platform owners, at the expense of advertisers. Though I guess they’ll skip the middle step, being a public company?

      https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

      • @FlexibleToast
        link
        English
        131 year ago

        So after they build good will in the community and get a large userbase on their platform you think they will then pull the rug right out from under their own feet? Why would they cripple AP if their app is running on it?

        • @PrometheusG
          link
          English
          131 year ago

          They replace AP with something else internally and abandon AP. If anyone wants to keep talking to them, they’ve got to hop onboard whatever they’ve replaced AP with. This effectively kills AP (theoretically).

          • Prethoryn Overmind
            link
            English
            21 year ago

            Why would it kill AP if there is a set of users that don’t care about those features but just their privacy?

            Just don’t use Meta’s app or switch. I just don’t understand personally how this removed every other server instance using AP out of the equation if FB would just be closing themselves off even if they did build something better or useful.

            • @zuhayr
              link
              English
              21 year ago

              We need to remember that ActivityPub and this entire fediverse is only to allow small, individual communities to live without a major corporation able to pull the plug. It’s not privacy centric at all. In fact, quite far from it.

              • Prethoryn Overmind
                link
                English
                11 year ago

                I don’t understand that either? I thought the Fediverse was privacy first driven? I don’t really understand how it couldn’t be when you can wall off Threads if you choose to do so?

                • @CurlyMoustache
                  link
                  English
                  11 year ago

                  AP is just a networking protocol for communication between several servers. You should assume everything you to is 1000% public and easily gathered by everyone that wants to

        • @IrrationalAndroid
          link
          English
          11
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          It’s not that they would necessarily cripple it, but they would “enhance” their instance of AP (the “extend” in EEE), “accidentally” making it incompatible with the rest of the Fediverse and thus creating an excuse to suddenly drop support for the Fediverse. At this point users in, say, Mastodon will have created some degree of dependency on users in Threads, and at that point people in there would be forced to move to Threads if they want to maintain a similar experience as before.

          • Prethoryn Overmind
            link
            English
            21 year ago

            Sounds like people should be more concerned about just not using Threads.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          81 year ago

          Actually, apps don’t “run on” AP. AP is a federation/communication protocol, it’s only used to communicate objects, or things about objects, to other servers. Every app that uses AP can basically still work without it, since it has its own data structures and UI.

        • @BaconIsAVeg
          link
          English
          71 year ago

          ActivityPub is a communication protocol. There’s nothing stopping anyone from implementing it and then adding their own ‘features’.

          Just look at how different companies have implemented the HTML ‘standard’. You end up with websites that require specific browsers to run properly. It’s gotten better over the past few years, but god damn anyone old enough to remember what a pain it was designing websites in the 90’s and working around all of Internet Explorer’s shenanigans will tell you it’s not a good time.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      61 year ago

      Yes they can block threads, but they have to choose to. So some people might be on servers whose operators don’t block it. And, well, some people might actually want it. I see a lot of Mastodon accounts moving instances in the future.