Not the OP, but Eternal September references the massive culture impact on Usenet when ISPs started lowering the barrier to joining the then somewhat exclusive forum-esque part of the internet.
Gatekeeping the fediverse while also wanting it to stay alive and to not be “EEE” my meta won’t work unfortunately.
I agree, but it’s a hard pill to swallow that Meta is the best partner to grow the fediverse. There are real lessons to learn from Embrace, Extend, Extinguish (look at XMPP and Google), not to mention privacy concerns and content moderation issues that seem to be a “feature” for Meta products vs bugs.
I’m not sure what Zuck is up to, but for whatever it’s worth I think the best think the fediverse can do is be somewhat reactive to Meta’s movements.
If instances start getting overwhelmed with content, then block.
If Meta starts showing signs of EEE, then instances can block.
And us users can move to instances that we feel match our personal stances on things - hate Facebook like the plague? Look at one of the defederated/blocking instances. Do you miss interacting with a larger audience? Stay on instances that are embracing (or withholding judgment) the Meta federation.
It’s a complex topic to be sure, and the only way we’ll know the right way to deal with it is with the benefit of hindsight in a few years
