Threads seems to be poised to take the Fediverse mainstream. Whether it's the first step in an Embrace/Extend/Extinguish strategy is not really relevant. The fact remains that Meta will bring the idea of "[email protected]" identities into mainstream consciousness. I suspect that this will be good for the Fediverse, at least in the short term.
That said, I'm worried that Meta will only choose to federate with a whitelist of ActivityPub instances, which would certainly be a long term harm to the Fediverse. Maybe they'll prove me wrong though. Zuck is more philosophical than people give him credit for, and I think he's aware of the mistakes he made that caused people to lose trust in Meta. He has an opportunity to embrace (for better or worse) federation as a way to distinguish Meta from its increasingly centralized peers.
It's also an opportunity to expose the disingenuity of Musk, who ironically promised to "turn the platform into 'something new that’s decentralized" [0] but is now suing Meta for making a product that more closely resembles that description than does Musk's recent behavior of view limits and auth walls.
That said, I'm worried that Meta will only choose to federate with a whitelist of ActivityPub instances, which would certainly be a long term harm to the Fediverse. Maybe they'll prove me wrong though. Zuck is more philosophical than people give him credit for, and I think he's aware of the mistakes he made that caused people to lose trust in Meta. He has an opportunity to embrace (for better or worse) federation as a way to distinguish Meta from its increasingly centralized peers.
It's also an opportunity to expose the disingenuity of Musk, who ironically promised to "turn the platform into 'something new that’s decentralized" [0] but is now suing Meta for making a product that more closely resembles that description than does Musk's recent behavior of view limits and auth walls.
[0] https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-had-a-plan-to-fix-social...