That was quick.
I’m honestly amazed they didn’t have ads out of the gate, Meta’s whole schtick is advertising and data.
They thought they could EEE the fediverse first.
Turns out people on decentralised social media aren’t totally fucking brain dead and could see it coming a mile away.
If they had any intention of EEE the fediverse, they wouldn’t have required users to opt into it, or made it unidirectional.
I think it’s pretty clear at this point that their only intention was to head off antitrust actions. But I think it’s safe to say we won’t see anymore development on that front in the near future.
Facebook famously didn’t have ads for a long time, even when people were pressuring Zuck to add them to keep the site from going running out of capital. Call it a loss leader, call it enshittification or market capture, whatever. Most companies that can afford to will start out being really great to their users, and once they have captured a section of the market, they start clawing more of that value back for themselves and their investors.
