A community index of servers added a new rule recently, that requires every participant to defederate from Threads. Some admins are unhappy.

Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.

  • OtterEnglish
    9•3 months ago

    This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.

    These conversations we’re having are all speculative, and we won’t know how things play out till we get there. Trying to predict the behaviour of large groups of people is… difficult

    What I predict is that defederation will play right into their selling point. We’re going up against a behemoth of evil with enough money to bankroll creators into joining and promoting their platform. Defederating (when the majority of people don’t understand what that means) will end up with people joining Threads.

    Threads has a very high (artificially inflated) user count, it’s by a company everyone already knows, and all instagram users already have an account. The strongest selling point we can have is “Join Mastodon, you can see all the same stuff but it’s run by a non-profit instead of Facebook” That doesn’t work if the selling point is “Join Mastodon to see different content”.

    For what it’s worth, I’m actively using Mastodon and trying to inform any friends / family that are jumping ship to shift to Mastodon. Best case scenario, Mastodon takes off properly, Threads becomes a failed project by Meta, and we can nail this shut for good.

    • @SorteKanin@feddit.dk
      8•3 months ago

      But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.

      You’re right that we don’t know what will happen. So it could just as well be that Threads would swallow the whole Fediverse and then if Threads blocks an instance, it’s like a death sentence for that instance. That’s the whole embrace, extend, extinguish.

      • OtterEnglish
        6•3 months ago

        But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.

        Somewhat yes

        • I think Threads doesn’t need that selling point because of the other advantages that it has
        • I find that when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y. Usually that means that Y = “We are happy to have X, but they chose to leave”

        We saw a bit of that last July for how some people picked Lemmy instances

        • @SorteKanin@feddit.dk
          6•3 months ago

          when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y

          Hmmm maybe? But I think that’s a misunderstanding from a lot of users. You don’t want to see all content, trust me. Defederating is not necessarily bad. In most cases, it’s healthy.

          • OtterEnglish
            2•3 months ago

            Yep I agree with you there :) It’s a useful tool, and it’s great that we have the option