They were bleeding users so they want some ways to tap into existing user pool and they think it is easy to get that by simply federating, but they are about to find out the hard way why it won’t go the way they want.
Why would you assume that? I think Facebook has reported a loss of users maybe one quarter, ever? They’re flirting with 3bn these days, as far as I can tell.
Well, like we’ve said elsewhere in this, they are orders of magnitude larger than the fediverse. Absorbing users or data is almost certainly not their motivation here.
It seems like a big commitment to federate, so one have to ask what really their motivation. I don’t see anything else than just tapping into user pool and trying to ride the wave. Do you have other ideas?
If they wanted to tap into a big user pool they’d link it to Instagram, instead, which has about 2bn MAUs, as opposed to somewhere between 9 and 12 million.
The obvious reasoning for moving to a federated solution would be Meta thinking that it’s a cool business opportunity to eventually link all the social media users they ALREADY have. Remember, they own Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Oculus, and at the moment none of them talk to each other, beyond them forcing Oculus users to have a Facebook login, which most of them dislike.
Besides that, BlueSky promotes itself as a separate federated service, which I’m assuming is something they’d like to match if they could when launching their own Twitter alternative.
ActivityPub provides a ready-made path to both of those things they can just… plug into without having to develop it from the ground up, like BlueSky is doing. One has to imagine that the dozen or so million people already using the tech are barely a speedbump along the way, wether they choose to stay linked up to Meta’s billions of users or not. Ultimately, open source is open source and Meta can still use the tech to power their Twitter clone and eventually plug it into Instagram and add two billion people to their userbase overnight.
I’d imagine they see a new platform/user base they can dump a ton of money into and slowly take for themselves. At very least, another well of user data. If their app was significantly better than the smaller dev’s, would you mind if there was an ad or two?
I am hoping we keep their grubby hands off, so there is no chance of them destroying this growing platform.
Honestly i would never use another meta product, idc how nice their app would be. i like my funky jerboa app and that’s that! Lol. But - i get your point. A lot of users prefer usability over privacy.
Okay, someone explain to me cus i apparently don’t have the critical thinking skills to figure it out on my own.
What does Meta want from joining the fediverse? What is the draw for them???
There’s a business strategy called embrace, extend, extinguish that they’ll try to use to snuff out the fediverse.
They were bleeding users so they want some ways to tap into existing user pool and they think it is easy to get that by simply federating, but they are about to find out the hard way why it won’t go the way they want.
Meta apps have a couple billion users. The fediverse has maybe ten million.
I really don’t think that’s the reason they’re considering ActivityPub.
I assumed over the years that users count would have been evaporated, so do we have current user counts for it?
Why would you assume that? I think Facebook has reported a loss of users maybe one quarter, ever? They’re flirting with 3bn these days, as far as I can tell.
Just that I don’t bother to care about them for years until now that they are trying to mess with Fediverse.
Well, like we’ve said elsewhere in this, they are orders of magnitude larger than the fediverse. Absorbing users or data is almost certainly not their motivation here.
It seems like a big commitment to federate, so one have to ask what really their motivation. I don’t see anything else than just tapping into user pool and trying to ride the wave. Do you have other ideas?
If they wanted to tap into a big user pool they’d link it to Instagram, instead, which has about 2bn MAUs, as opposed to somewhere between 9 and 12 million.
The obvious reasoning for moving to a federated solution would be Meta thinking that it’s a cool business opportunity to eventually link all the social media users they ALREADY have. Remember, they own Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Oculus, and at the moment none of them talk to each other, beyond them forcing Oculus users to have a Facebook login, which most of them dislike.
Besides that, BlueSky promotes itself as a separate federated service, which I’m assuming is something they’d like to match if they could when launching their own Twitter alternative.
ActivityPub provides a ready-made path to both of those things they can just… plug into without having to develop it from the ground up, like BlueSky is doing. One has to imagine that the dozen or so million people already using the tech are barely a speedbump along the way, wether they choose to stay linked up to Meta’s billions of users or not. Ultimately, open source is open source and Meta can still use the tech to power their Twitter clone and eventually plug it into Instagram and add two billion people to their userbase overnight.
This was a very illuminating view from another post
Read this one earlier. Great article, wonderfully written.
I’d imagine they see a new platform/user base they can dump a ton of money into and slowly take for themselves. At very least, another well of user data. If their app was significantly better than the smaller dev’s, would you mind if there was an ad or two?
I am hoping we keep their grubby hands off, so there is no chance of them destroying this growing platform.
Honestly i would never use another meta product, idc how nice their app would be. i like my funky jerboa app and that’s that! Lol. But - i get your point. A lot of users prefer usability over privacy.
^ The eternal struggle that most likely leads to our eventual downfall as a society.