By Eugen Rochko (CEO/Founder @ Mastodon)
Today, Meta is launching its new microblogging platform called Threads. What is noteworthy about this launch is that Threads intends to become part of the decentralized social web by using the same standard protocol as Mastodon, ActivityPub. There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today…
I’m not convinced meta is even intending to join the fediverse I think it’s far more likely they use activitypub to link Instagram Facebook and threads together and they never join the fediverse
They don’t gain much adding fediverse users to the content mill. I have a hard time believing anyone at meta wants to give us access to “their” content without the reciprocal user data and ad attention in return. Hell, Reddit just imploded to rid itself of “freeloaders”.
They saw an opportunity to take twitter’s users, they probably used activitypub because it was fast. If they start federating, we can decide how to handle it. They will win the war for users, but we can have a nice space that they aren’t allowed to touch if we want it.
It’s a bit strange that the Mastodon founder is promoting a corporate rival to his application. Meta has a sketchy history they can’t really hide with an open source application.
He didn’t create mastodon with the dream of destroying corporate social networks, but instead because he had a bright-eyed dream that everyone could create their own social network experience. I think he’s naive about Facebook’s intentions, but I think to his mind, a big tech company adopting the technology to interact with Mastodon is what he always wanted
Mechanic here. Came here trying to contribute to the discussion …
A dizzying number of notable people and people in my personal life have hopped onto Threads, day 1. The “fuck Elon / Twitter” sentiment and generally good vibes to this point mirror the experience I had here when I hopped onto Beehaw and we also had similar optimism and a “fuck u/spez” sentiment. But the major difference I see is this — for the sake of sticking it to Elon these folks are getting themselves even further entangled in Zuck’s world, and we’ve already seen the monsters that emerge from that muck.
Any social network that builds up a massive, general userbase inevitably enshittifies as the marketers / advertisers / influencers and otherwise self-promoters get their content boosted. With its extremely close ties to Instagram, those sorts of users will be ramped up on Threads in no time, and this period of positivity with fade in turn as that content starts getting vomited out and funneled to everyone.
The independent Fediverse is not without its faults, but I’m much more comfortable building community within this coalition of a space than in any of Meta’s creations.
“Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon”
Didn’t all those pundits say only tech nerds can figure Mastodon out?
Threads got 2 mil signups in 2 hours…
When I went to join mastadon, I had to type a URL to join. I had to google what URL to put in. So that tracks.
