I would compare Mastodon with Threads to Linux with the Wine compatibility layer.
People used to hold off on using Linux, because they did not want to lose their Windows software. Now with Wine, people are a lot less reliant on Windows and many Linux users and Microsoft competitors profit from this.
The Steam Machine was reliant on native Linux games, but almost nobody wanted to develop for a niche desktop OS, which led to less games on the platform, which made Linux even more niche for gamers …
That’s a big reason the Steam Machine failed.
The Steam Deck side-steps all of this with Wine. Now Linux can grow freely, even when developers ignore Linux completely. Wine gives Linux a fighting chance against Windows.
The same way I believe, that Mastodon will only get a fighting chance, if they can side-step the “nobody I know uses Mastodon” problem. Federation with Threads could be one solution to this.
The thing with Wine is that, from what I understand, it was made to help Windows software run on Linux. From the beginning, its primary intention was to help Linux users. Facebook’s primary intention is to get more money. If they believe extinguishing Mastodon will further that goal, they’ll do it. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Mastodon is big enough to make Thread users think they’ll be missing any significant amount of content if Facebook removed ActivityPub support.
I would compare Mastodon with Threads to Linux with the Wine compatibility layer.
People used to hold off on using Linux, because they did not want to lose their Windows software. Now with Wine, people are a lot less reliant on Windows and many Linux users and Microsoft competitors profit from this.
The Steam Machine was reliant on native Linux games, but almost nobody wanted to develop for a niche desktop OS, which led to less games on the platform, which made Linux even more niche for gamers …
That’s a big reason the Steam Machine failed.
The Steam Deck side-steps all of this with Wine. Now Linux can grow freely, even when developers ignore Linux completely. Wine gives Linux a fighting chance against Windows.
The same way I believe, that Mastodon will only get a fighting chance, if they can side-step the “nobody I know uses Mastodon” problem. Federation with Threads could be one solution to this.
The thing with Wine is that, from what I understand, it was made to help Windows software run on Linux. From the beginning, its primary intention was to help Linux users. Facebook’s primary intention is to get more money. If they believe extinguishing Mastodon will further that goal, they’ll do it. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Mastodon is big enough to make Thread users think they’ll be missing any significant amount of content if Facebook removed ActivityPub support.