Let's say the worst case scenario happens with kbin and Meta. What are some alternate sites/instances that would be more resilient to enshitification?
I'm getting really tired of trying to run away from big tech, only to be ensnared again by the greed and/or naivety of sites who ultimately cave to the whims of big tech.
Mastodon has already caved, and the silence of lemmy's and kbin's developers over this matter isn't exactly reassuring. Since I more or less still have my bags packed from leaving reddit, what are some other communities I could try that would be more resilient to corporate encroachment?
This is way too dramatic. Mastodon hasn't caved. The mastodon.social instance might federate with META, but it is not said it will. The kbin developer is a tad busy with keeping kbin.social instance running and fixing kbin software. So the silence doesn't mean anything.
Host your own instance and do whatever you want. That way you can be sure what will happen.
Yeah, there's a list of instances that have agreed to defederate any Meta instance. Even if mastodon.social federates with them, there's still plenty of places to jump ship to.
I am glad the instance of Mastodon I use will defederate from meta.
The two biggest instances at the moment as far as I know is kbin social and lemmy world if one allows meta I will just use the other one. Though I recommend any instance that has signed the anti meta pact. This shows a list of instances that signed it I would pick one of those.
So Meta's plan is to make a twitter-alike that spies on its users and manipulates them into being the hate fueled engagement engine, and then inflict that on the fediverse?
What's to stop everyone from pointing out as often as possible that users can still talk to Zuck's twits without the spying and manipulation by simply doing so from a non-Meta instance, and then defederating Meta once they are no longer dominant?
So Meta’s plan is to make a twitter-alike that spies on its users and manipulates them into being the hate fueled engagement engine, and then inflict that on the fediverse?
No one outside their boardroom knows what Meta's plan is, but I doubt they care much about fedi. They are trying to kill off Twitter and take that marketshare of ~500M users. The fediverse with a total of 9M users (and no advertising revenue) isn't very important in that scheme.
They are in deep legal trouble with EU privacy regulations and need to show to EU they are "taking things seriously". ActivityPub was most likely a nice "freebie" they can use and point out they offer interoperability. The whole fediverse bit is just to escape further GDPR trouble with EU.
What’s to stop everyone from pointing out as often as possible that users can still talk to Zuck’s twits without the spying and manipulation by simply doing so from a non-Meta instance, and then defederating Meta once they are no longer dominant?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean? That people would migrate away from Threads if they knew they only knew can access their followers from somewhere else? Why on earth would that ever happen? The opposite is more likely.
That’s an interesting angle that I completely failed to notice. I thought this whole experiment is for Facebook/Meta to get a headstart in a new tech space, like they’re been trying to do with VR and the whole crypto craze.
While I never assumed their intentions were pure with any of this, I clearly was not nearly as cynical as one has to be with these people.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean? That people would migrate away from Threads if they knew they only knew can access their followers from somewhere else? Why on earth would that ever happen?
I mean, that's what happened when people left myspace for facebook. Facebook provided tools that let them use facebook while still communicating with myspace users until enough people switched and myspace became irrelevant. Myspace's dominance was unassailable until it wasn't.
What’s to stop everyone from pointing out as often as possible that users can still talk to Zuck’s twits without the spying and manipulation by simply doing so from a non-Meta instance
Facebook users are stupid, network effects ensure that most people go to a single provider and then minor incompatibilities between threads and the fediverse slowly cuts off the fediverse and ensures it dies.
What does "dies" mean in this circumstance? We already only have 1% of their users. Are we afraid that access toore content here will cause users to leave for Facebook?
Ah yes, I'm sure talking about how stupid the average person is what we need to do in order to promote the Fediverse as a positive and welcoming platform.
Given the fediverse is pretty open by design, meta doesn't even need to be part of it to spy if they wanted. It's the EEE strategy that people are more worried about.
Given the fediverse is pretty open by design, meta doesn’t even need to be part of it to spy if they wanted.
They can't gather all the same information that they could from a phone app, and we've seen what permissions they ask for on that. They also can't manipulate the feed to drive engagement by fostering hate like they can with their own site/app.
It’s the EEE strategy that people are more worried about.
Hence the "get them off meta and onto other instances and then defederate" thing.
You're catastrophising - if course it hasn't. Eugene is taking a 'wait and see' attitude, given that Threads isn't even federating yet - as I suspect are the others.
If the absolute worst happens then you can simply crank up your own instance of Lemmy or Kbin or Mastodon.
the silence of lemmy's and kbin's developers over this matter isn't exactly reassuring
This isn't how the Fediverse works. Instance owners can decide who they will/won't federate with. The developers just develop the software the instance owners use.
uh well, i dont understand... you are able to self host these services. you can self host a Masto instance, a lemmy instance, and a kbin instance. you aren't tied to big tech just because a large instance has federated with big tech... so i don't see how "Mastodon has caved". i am on mstdn.social and the admin is blocking Meta from the start as Threads is not allowed to operate in the EU at the moment (exception is London, right?)
either self host or find an instance that isn't federating with big tech. you don't have to run anywhere.
Threads is available in the UK, the UK is not in the EU any more. We theoretically have data protection laws grandfathered in from the EU but they're not enforced
Threads is just a bad ActivityPub client with ads, tracking and Zuck. I am less worried about it and the federation with it because we will get non of that, no ads, no tracking and we can block Zuck. I am more worried about a general flood of typical instagram users and their love for the most blandest of human interaction.
Ultimately, the important thing is that communities can exist with some amount of independence and can operate by their own preferences.
Sometimes I want serious intellectual conversations. Sometimes I want to talk about trashy reality TV. Sometimes I just want the dumbest memes to ever enter a human mind. None of these have to be mutually exclusive, so long as different communities can manage themselves.
No no, I am not talking about people who enjoy talking about trashy reality tv.
I talk about people who's main focus in life is posting presumably good looking pictures of their face and body on instagram. Or people whos main focus is to look wealthy on instagram. Like the absolute peak of human blandness.
You raise another good issue; the influx of all those most of us left behind on Reddit, though a slightly different breed.
I'm really enjoying actual conversation here, the posting of actual articles and discussions. I like that my feed isn't full of memes (I blocked the instances that like that stuff, power to them elsewhere), reposted tiktok videos and tweet screenshots. The fediverse is going to be tainted. Obviously it could happen eventually if this place got more popular, but I was hoping to have a longer grace period..