If Meta is really working on a new ActivityPub-powered social network, I see it as a very positive signal overall--my personal feelings towards Meta notwithstanding. For one, it's validation for our entire ecosystem from the biggest player. It also tells me that they don't see themselves as strong enough to keep users locked inside their walled garden anymore. It means the tide is really turning for interoperable social media, and that's always been the goal.
@Gargron From experience I can tell you the Facebook playbook:
1) Tightly embrace and clone the latest new thing
2) Reach out to the people who've been key in building/supporting that new thing with attractive partnerships to gain their support, trust and endorsement
3) Abruptly pull support from those same people when either a) the current new thing is under their control or b) the next new thing arrives
I've seen these movies too many times and the sequels keep getting worse.
@mike @Gargron LOL I think I had a thread going about this for a few years https://twitter.com/anildash/status/951597964513959936
@mike @Gargron
This is a slightly more detailed version of your points Mike, if you have not read it before.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
@mike
I think a key question is what can we (as users and developers of the fediverse) get out of Meta? I had this discussion with @DataDrivenMD yesterday. I came away from it with the belief that we need to a) recognize the power that we have in this situation and b) recognize how tenuous that power is.
@Gargron
A paraphrase from Futureama's Bender
@mike @Gargron The #enshitification effort begins. I expect them to wrap AP with slick APIs to make everything easy then embed all of it with tracking pixels and centralization friendly workflows. Guess we will find out how resistant AP is to this kind of attack. I'm hopeful but expect a fight.
@mike Exactly! It’s fine to say Facebook embracing ActivityPub is validating, but let’s not be naive. We’ve seen what you describe over and over for decades now.