They don’t do so for Google either, but Google still does shit like this.
They could absolutely include extensions to ActivityPub to their instances, even sell it in a freemium model for companies. Host your instance on Threads instead of Mastodon and get “analytics”.
It wouldn’t work with any other instance though. You can extend it all you want, but the other instances need to comply. That’s why the extension prong of EEE doesn’t really work here. It only applies to themselves. They can extend it all they want but they’ll only get metrics from themselves and other Threads-based instances.
Other Threads instances will comply, and Meta can court big instances to use the extended Threads API, and you will see small instances to follow the flock.
Big instances would instantly lose every instance other than Meta’s. Why would they ever do that? Especially when the biggest instances are mostly approaching Meta with caution if not already defederating?
The fediverse doesn’t handle rogue actors all that well if they change the literal language used to communicate. It breaks it. Even Microsoft, the one who basically invented the strategy decided against it in the end. They broke the internet for a long while, but only because they were in a much stronger position than, say, Netscape, which was originally designed to fail anyway.
Meta would need to change the actual protocol if they wanted to get anywhere. Even then, instances can simply refuse to upgrade.
It is much more difficult than you think. And id much rather users see they can live without Threads than to force them into Meta’s corner. I’d rather help people get away rather than ignore their existence. If Threads is too annoying overall, I’ll vote defederate. But I want to see what happens first.
They don’t do so for Google either, but Google still does shit like this.
They could absolutely include extensions to ActivityPub to their instances, even sell it in a freemium model for companies. Host your instance on Threads instead of Mastodon and get “analytics”.
It wouldn’t work with any other instance though. You can extend it all you want, but the other instances need to comply. That’s why the extension prong of EEE doesn’t really work here. It only applies to themselves. They can extend it all they want but they’ll only get metrics from themselves and other Threads-based instances.
Other Threads instances will comply, and Meta can court big instances to use the extended Threads API, and you will see small instances to follow the flock.
Big instances would instantly lose every instance other than Meta’s. Why would they ever do that? Especially when the biggest instances are mostly approaching Meta with caution if not already defederating?
The fediverse doesn’t handle rogue actors all that well if they change the literal language used to communicate. It breaks it. Even Microsoft, the one who basically invented the strategy decided against it in the end. They broke the internet for a long while, but only because they were in a much stronger position than, say, Netscape, which was originally designed to fail anyway.
Meta would need to change the actual protocol if they wanted to get anywhere. Even then, instances can simply refuse to upgrade.
It is much more difficult than you think. And id much rather users see they can live without Threads than to force them into Meta’s corner. I’d rather help people get away rather than ignore their existence. If Threads is too annoying overall, I’ll vote defederate. But I want to see what happens first.