You forgot Rule 1 of the fediverse: Kbin does not exist.

Bad bad bad bad bad bad.

I firmly believe that no instance should harbor a large portion of activity on the fediverse, as it makes it difficult for other instances to defederate from them (as users there would lose a massive portion of the content that they see) and easy for them to take users from other instances by just ceasing to federate (as users on other instances would have to go to the large instance to keep the level of activity their used to). And that’s in regards to microblogs like on Mastodon.

With communities, it’d be so much worse.

If Reddit federates, and Lemmy/Kbin instances don’t defederate en masse, almost every active community will be on reddit.com. No reason to post on minecraft@lemmy.world with its 5 posts a week when Minecraft@reddit.com has millions of subscribers and thousands upon thousands of active users. Nearly all activity will go to subreddits, the exceptions being from people who have blocked Reddit or on communities pertaining to non-Reddit platforms/instances (e.g., kbinMeta@kbin.social). And if Reddit defederates after that, the threadiverse will be a ghost town. People are already (and justifiably) concerned that too many people and big communities are on lemmy.world. Just imagine Reddit coming in with all of its users.

If Reddit federates, it’s just gonna straight up be embrace and extinguish — no extend required.

@rah Maybe I’m not being clear. When I say that “we” means “the fediverse in general”, I don’t mean that everyone should gather 'round and come to a consensus on what values they should uphold and who should be excluded. This is obviously something that should occur on an instance or individual level, as (A) there are a large variety of different people and instances on the fediverse with different priorities and (B) as you stated, anyone can implement ActivityPub and tap into the fediverse if they want to, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

What I mean is that people should be thinking about what they think instance owners should aim for and form their opinions on the current situation based on that. My goal with this post is to show what I think an “ideal fediverse” looks like and have others share their thoughts. Having thoughts about what’s healthy for people on the fediverse and having wants based on that isn’t misunderstanding the technology — it’s simply expressing preferences.

@rah I’d say the fediverse in general, particularly those on instances with microblogging (as they’re the ones affected by Threads, Flipboard, etc.). Obviously, everyone won’t have the same values, but I think it’s still important that everyone at least thinks about what they want the fediverse to grow into.

1. People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.

If someone isn’t aware that they’re on the fediverse, then they can’t really benefit from the openness and customizability that it provides. A mastodon.social user who knows nothing of the fediverse won’t know that they can move to a different Mastodon instance or interact with the same content using Friendica, as they won’t know that the options exist to begin with.

Furthermore, people will have more incentive to preserve an open fediverse if they’re aware that it exists. If the fediverse is filled with people who, for example, think that Threads is all there is or didn’t come to Threads with an awareness of the fediverse, the fediverse becomes much easier to undermine.

1. There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.

If someone wants to join a closed-source instance run by a for-profit company, they should absolutely be able to. However, that should ideally be because they prefer an instance moderated by Meta, not because the free and open-source alternatives are relatively lacking. Open-source software is extremely important in order for users to have options and agency, so we should aim for these factors to not come with a sacrifice. Otherwise, companies will be able to draw most newcomers to their instance and attain a large share of the content on the fediverse, which is bad as discussed with Statement #1.

Going by this principle, if the owner over a closed-source fediverse platform starts trying to create exclusive functionality that would attract people their instance, they should be regarded with extreme caution. If you’re familiar with the whole “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” thing, a company doing such would be the “Extend” phase of EEE, and that’s a situation we should avoid at all costs.

3/3

1. No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.

This is important for instances to be able to defederate from those with bad moderation, harmful values, etc. If a person or group controls a big portion of the content that people see on an instance, then that instance will lose a lot of that content should they defederate. That person or group would essentially be able to do whatever, and instances would find difficulty defederating because they’d lose so much visible activity and thus users.

If a single entity gets enough dominance over activity, they could make defederation from them out of the question for a ton of users. Furthermore, that entity could cripple the fediverse by simply leaving it, taking a bunch of users from other instances with them. This is a big concern many people have with Threads; if 90% of the activity you see on mastodon.social comes from Threads, then Meta would be able to nab a ton of mastodon.social users by leaving the fediverse, facing those users with the choice of either losing a ton of their connections & follows or jumping ship to Threads.

But you don’t even need a supermajority of content to cause that much harm. For example, take the threadiverse (Lemmy/Kbin). A large portion of visible activity is controlled by the admins of lemmy.world. Thankfully, they seem to nice people, but if they were to start (for example) being more lax with hate speech, other Lemmy/Kbin instances would either have to deal with it or lose access to a large portion of the activity pool. If any threadiverse instance were to defederate from lemmy.world — even if the lemmy.world admins started acting against the interests of the fediverse and its users — that instance would lose a dangerous number of users.

1. Users can move between instances without penalty.

One of the main benefits of the fediverse is that you can move to a different instance and still be able to view the same content. If the admins of your instance start making moderation decisions you disagree with or you just decide that you want to be on an instance that you yourself run, you’re able to move and still interact with the content pool. Thus, as long as the platform your destination instance uses (e.g., Firefish, Kbin, Mastodon) supports the same type of content as your old one, you should be able to move without any downsides. The more penalty there is for moving, the more people will feel trapped on an instance even if they want to leave.

This is partially a matter of robust systems for moving accounts, but it’s also a matter of having good options available. Mastodon has a ton of active, stable instances, so if you ever want to move (e.g., because your instance is or isn’t defederating from Threads), you can do so and still be able to use Mastodon. However, the only such instance on Kbin is kbin.social (not counting instances that run Mbin, a fork with different features & development). If you want to move from kbin.social to another Kbin instance, you don’t really have a lot of options. And if you’re on something that’s closed-source, you’ll be forced to move to a different platform entirely, which may not be great for the user — an important reason why free and open-source software should be prominent on the fediverse.

Obviously, this is something that might be impossible to achieve. But even if we can’t eliminate the strings attached to moving to another instance, we should try to minimize them.

1. People can create and run their own instances to their liking with minimal effort.

If a user wants to, they should be able to control their interactions on the fediverse through running their own instance, and doing so should require as little effort as is feasible. Many people have already set up single-person instances for the purpose of having more control over their data. If people can’t do that, then they’re forced to put their account and content under the control of other people. Of course, most people are fine with this provided that they trust their instance admins, but the option to be your own admin should be as available as possible.

This is part of why it’s so important to have prominent open-source platforms. If Mastodon weren’t open-source, then anyone who likes Mastodon but wants to control their content would be out of luck. If you like the Threads interface but don’t want to be on an instance run by Meta, you just don’t have that option.

2/3

@umbraroze

Why the fuck do people even follow the site any more.

Unfortunately, that’s where all the content is. Things like this don’t bother a lot of people — for example, discussion about YT videos wasn’t something I ever used Reddit for — and as long as Reddit is the only platform providing what they’re interested in, they’re going to stay.

Ah, I follow. Even so, I’d love to see Kbin grow as a platform for viewing, interacting with, and posting microblogs. I have gotten a ton of value out of the All Content view, and I think that more robust microblogging will make Kbin a much more attractive platform. Thus, I think it’s important to consider the impact (for better or for worse) of big contributors like Flipboard and Threads, even if most of the people on Kbin rn aren’t bothering with microblogs.

I’d disagree that they don’t matter at all. Even if you don’t, there are plenty of people who use the microblog side of Kbin and care about what’s in the microblog feed. Obviously, this doesn’t concern people who only use threads, but that’s not a reason to assert that we shouldn’t care.

I came to the Threadiverse because Reddit was closing its APIs and building the walls higher around its garden. I will be supremely disappointed if the Threadiverse collectively turns around and does the same thing.

So instances on the fediverse have some obligation to let entities who (A) will control 99% of the content, against our values of a decentralized, more evenly distributed fediverse; (B) have zero interest in an open fediverse; and © have all the incentive in the world to prevent its growth and get more people on their own platform to ensure profit? As usually hesitant as I am about preemptive defederation, if the fediverse is to preserve its values of openness and ensure its growth, it can’t let in for-profit corporations that will control most of the activity and that go directly against those values of openness we care about so much. Just as tolerance doesn’t mean letting in those who are intolerant, an unwalled fediverse can and should put its guards up against those who want to take everything for themselves.

it gives Meta no incentive to do things right

Meta already has zero incentive to do things right. In fact, they have negative incentive, as people being on Mastodon or Kbin instead of Threads actively harms them. You will never see Mark Zuckerberg suggest that people spread out to other instances so that no one gains too much control, but you will see him try to get as many people from the other instances on Threads as possible. We are talking about making our activity dependent on a for-profit tech corporation. If we were way larger so that Threads wouldn’t control such a massive portion of activity, I wouldn’t be as concerned, but as things stand now, we’re letting our content pool be dominated by a company that has interests in direct opposition with ours. I can’t see a scenario where any of this ends well.

Thanks for the alternate perspective! However, it doesn’t really alleviate my concerns much:

Firstly, the claim “Nearly everyone here came from Reddit’s API fiasco.” isn’t necessarily true, as the fediverse consists of more than Lemmy and the threads section on Kbin. Threads primarily concerns microblogging, which includes platforms like Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, Friendica, and Kbin. Even so, you could say that all of these people came from similar situations — they all could’ve chose Twitter or what have you and instead chose the smaller platforms on the fediverse. But does that really mean that they’ll stay here? This whole situation is showing that people are desperate for activity, even if that activity means relying on a corporation with interests that go against ours. People have already left following drops in activity — during Ernest’s hiatus, the number of active Kbin users plummeted (yes, it was always going to down after the initial rise from the Reddit migration, but Kbin went down a lot, especially compared to Lemmy) and hasn’t recovered. Those people, who have tried it and said, “Yeah, this isn’t really working,” are really hard to get back.

Now, imagine if everyone here got used to the large amount of microblog content provided by Threads, interacted with it a bunch, followed a bunch of Threads accounts, etc. like people are expressing plans to do. If Threads quits federating, thereby making all of that content and connection inaccessible to the rest of the fediverse, do you think people will stick around after that much of an activity drop? No, tons of people are going to follow the 99% of activity and flock to Threads, leaving the open fediverse in a position worse than right now. If you want to give Meta the chance to kill the fediverse’s chance of growing to become a legitimate competitor, this is how you do it.

What you say about people having choice is true. If people want to access the fediverse through Threads, that is absolutely their choice. However, another beauty of ActivityPub is that we have the choice over whether we accept interaction with Threads or not. We don’t have to become dependent on Meta to carry the fediverse — we can shut them out immediately and grow slowly but surely. If someone wants to join Threads, we aren’t under any obligation to show them our content. Instead, saying, “Hey, if you want interaction with us, head over to something that cares about an open fediverse like a Mastodon or Kbin instance,” is going to be much better for us long-term.

I don’t think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks,
No matter how we view it, Meta views ActivityPub as competition to Threads and rightfully so. The values we currently hold on the fediverse — transparency from moderators & developers, no one instance having control, people having lots of choice, etc. — are values that directly go against Meta’s profit whether they join ActivityPub or not. It is in Meta’s best interest to pull as many users from here as possible and to nip the fediverse in the bud before it grows. Zuckerberg is not here to play nice, and I can’t fathom how anyone would believe so. He does not care about a decentralized, open fediverse. He wants to get as many people on his platform as possible and to make potential competitors less viable, and this is how he can do it.

The issue is that this does affect Kbin because Kbin is a microblogging platform. It’s also a thread aggregator, but it has microblog functionality that some people do actually use. Should we not defederate, stuff from Threads will flood the microblogs of Kbin. If your home page is set to use the All Content feed (like mine is), you’ll see microblogs from Threads there. This doesn’t have as much of an effect as it does on a purely microblogging-focused platform like Mastodon, but it does still affect a big way that Kbin is used.

I feel the post doesn’t really address my concerns.

Really? You think Threads will take over and rule Mastodon? Threads is its own platform, users on the fediverse can still join Mastodon #servers of their choice and leave. I expect we’l see plenty of anti #threads Mastodon servers pop up. If Threads were to somehow get an influence in Mastodon, just switch to #lemmy switch to #pixelfed switch to #firefish So many choices.

This seems to not really understand the risk Threads poses. Threads is its own platform, yes, but it will dominate the visible content of any instance that federates with it. It’s very dangerous to depend on a massive, profit-driven corporation for activity on the fediverse, as the things we value on the fediverse (decentralization, transparency, even distribution of content between instances, etc.) go against the corporation’s motives. Meta does not stand to benefit from any of the things we value, and most of the Threads userbase (i.e. casual Instagram users) probably won’t notice or care about federation. Meta does benefit if everyone depends on them for content, as then they can pull people to Threads just by defederating. People will choose to go to Threads where the amount of activity is what they’re used to over staying on their Mastodon instance after activity has plummeted and they can’t see most of the people they follow.

This is a big one. Meta might capture the mainstrean fediverse. Lets just be real the average regular internet user wasn’t going to join Mastodon in the first place. Not that they wouldn’t want to it just isn’t on their list next to #facebook #instagram #tiktok #youtube #discord or even #twitter . Actually I take what Meta is doing as a compliment to the fediverse. Remember Twitter at one time under #elon #elonmusk banned the talk of Mastodon or something like that. Threads might not have our interests at heart but they are already mainstream so why should they not allow their users be federated with us?

Yes, there are definitely a lot of people that the fediverse is just never going to appeal to. But of those who are interested in the fediverse, more will be inclined to join Threads due to it having most of the content & just requiring an Instagram login. There is a pool of people out there who will try out the fediverse if they’re introduced to it — that’s how we all got here — and if people can interact with the big Mastodon, Kbin, etc. instances from Threads, many will choose to do that when they wouldn’t have otherwise.

This may be an issue of poor wording on my part. The idea I’m trying to get across is that if Kbin, Mastodon, & other microblog platforms that are currently on the fediverse don’t defederate from Threads, the users on those platforms will become dependent on Meta for activity. If Meta then leaves the fediverse, activity will drop down to what we have now, only with people used to the activity brought by Threads and having all of the connections they made with Threads accounts. This will pull tons of people from Kbin, Mastodon, etc. and essentially kill the open fediverse with very little hope of it growing again.

And to be clear, Meta has tons of incentive to do this. Meta is a profit-driven company. They want as many people as possible on their platforms, not on Mastodon or on Kbin or on Firefish or on Misskey. The open, widely distributed fediverse that we strive for goes against Meta’s motives. Just as they’d have everyone on the Metaverse if he could, Zuckerberg will absolutely pull people from Kbin onto Threads if he gets the chance, and he will get that chance if we decide to put the content pool in the hands of Meta for the sake of trying to get activity as quickly as possible.

Yeah, they made a complete 3D Snoo. You can see it here. I think it’s fine for the most part. It’s just that the open smile that they used for the logo just doesn’t work that well imo.

I think if most people genuinely liked these features, you’d see people say that more when they’re being discussed. What’s more likely (and what I see way more often) is the second thing you mentioned: that most people don’t really care and just go on with life. But if most users don’t care, it again begs the question of why waste time making these changes at all. It seems like it’s just to keep the UI design team busy more than anything.

@tcely

Even the best attempt to incorporate all these different types of content into Mastodon is going to further complicate the platform and make more people dismiss Mastodon as too complicated of a Twitter alternative. This isn’t a situation where there’s no harm at best. And the potential benefit? Lemmy comments having the occasional Mastodon user?

Mastodon itself is a good enough introduction to ActivityPub without needing to make it support other things. It shows how people on different servers can share & interact with a pool of media through the same protocol. When people learn about other platforms on the fediverse, they can go check those out. Just promoting the platforms will do the job fine without complicating people’s entry into the fediverse.

This isn’t a hurdle because people typically aren’t going to the fediverse with the idea of “I want a single app for all my social media.” That’s not how social media works outside the fediverse, so it’s not really going to be a surprise that the Twitter replacement is a Twitter replacement and not one for 5 other platforms. If someone really wants to view Reddit-style threads, they’re straight up better of making an account on a different platform (just like they would make a different account for Reddit) because Mastodon is a microblogging site.

@tcely

I disagree. Yes, Mastodon is the first ActivityPub-based platform for most people, but that doesn’t mean it’s obligated to be an app for all social media on the fediverse. Most people go there for microblogging, not to see threads from Kbin or images from Pixelfed or videos from PeerTube. They just want a Twitter alternative, and Mastodon should provide that imo. If people already view the mere act of selecting an instance as enough of a barrier to prevent them from trying it out, you’re going to lose more people if you complicate things by shoving YouTube-style or Reddit-style content into the platform.

This also makes me think that it wouldn’t be very effective way of supporting other platforms. You’re not going to get much engagement from Mastodonians on other types of content because those types are just not what they’re there for. At best, you’ll get people commenting on Lemmy threads thinking that they’re microblog posts and thus not actually understanding the format of the thing they’re replying to.

@carturo222 I didn’t mention it due to a lack of familiarity, but if Friendica serves that purpose, that’s great! People who want to interact with all of the fediverse with a single account should use that or a similar platform. The thing is that people are starting to advocate for everything to do what Friendica does — e.g., for Mastodon to be able to seamlessly interact with non-microblog stuff in the fediverse — and that’s just not what Mastodon is trying to do.