Meta can introduce their signature rage farming to the Fediverse. They don’t need to control Mastodon. All they have to do is introduce it in their app. Show every Threads user algorithmically filtered content from the Fediverse precisely tailored for maximum rage. When the rage inducing content came from Mastodon, the enraged Thread users will flood that Mastodon threads with the familiar rage-filled Facebook comment section vomit. This in turn will enrage Mastodon users, driving them to engage, at least in the short to mid term. All the while Meta sells ads in-between posts. And that’s how they rage farm the Fediverse without EEE-ing the technology. Meta can effectively EEE the userbase. The last E is something Meta may not intend but would likely happen. It consists of a subset of the Fediverse users leaving the network or segregating themselves in a small vomit-free bubble.
Some people asked what EEE is:
I don’t think Mastodon allows user blocking instance either but I don’t see why that can not change in the future.
I’m not sure forcing open source on other instances is the right way to go. I imagine that in the future there could be instances that offer more polished experience, maybe a really nice proprietary app, that are commercially funded. As long as we have open alternatives and interoperability then we should be fine. In terms of privacy it’s a matter of regulations.
I also fully respect choice of some instances to defederate from commercial platforms but in a rational environment it would be akin to subset of Linux users opting to use free software only with no binary blobs and things like that. Perfectly reasonable thing to do if that’s what your ethics / philosophy dictates. Just don’t think it’s something that is a net benefit to average person.
Good points. I’m sure there are other potential solutions to reduce the fear of EEE taking place here. I don’t really think EEE would work, since instances are supposed to be small and operate horizontally, it is kind of impossible to kill Lemmy as long as we understand that we need to spread out a little bit (otherwise huge instances being defederated hugely impacts the user experience)
One thing though, Mastodon does allow for blocking domains. I just tried it over Mastodon.online and also through the fedilabs app, both are working. Kbin also has that feature, wish they implemented it to Lemmy so that we can empower users to customize their experience without needing to self host.