Meta exist to make a profit, however they’re never going to be able to advertise to most people in the fediverse, who also happen to be some of the most knowledgeable people in some fields. If they accept that they’re never going to be able to advertise to those people, they go for the next best thing: monetising their content. Some here may rightfully have an issue with a corporation monetising their content, however by federating with the fediverse and being the first company able to monetise the content within it, Meta have a vested interest in not extinguishing the fediverse.
Complain about their privacy violations or them monetising content they don’t generate as much as you want, but remember they’re smart & money hungry, and the smartest thing they can do in their position is to make money out of people they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.
probably could have said the same about Google and XMMP, but look what happened
corporations exist to make money, and this includes eliminating or incorporating anything that could get in their way or make money
the fact that the Fediverse is starting to get a bit more popular is going to convince them to get in on it (and then eventually try to control as much of the market as possible) or make it irrelevant so the average person is funneled to them again
Dunno if this is entering conspiracy theory area but I do think big corps are afraid of FOSS becoming mainstream. A recent article I read about AI said that open sourced models are considered a real future threat to proprietary ones and I keep thinking if the same could be said for social networks and hosting services. After all look at how long piracy had endured and prospered due to efforts of a few, and that’s with all the legal issues too.