How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) écrit par Ploum, Lionel Dricot, ingénieur, écrivain de science-fiction, développeur de logiciels libres.
With Meta starting to actually implement ActivityPub, I think it would be a good idea to remind everyone of what they are most likely going to do.
Meta does not give a shit to absorb the fedi. We are like a thousandth of their size, just a blip on their radar. I have no idea where people get this idea of self importance that Meta cares about their 10 user server.
If they didn't why would they develop tools to federate? It's obvious that the threads project was sped up significantly following musk's obliteration of Twitter, so they wouldn't go out of their way to implement such a feature if they didn't have a very specific reason for it.
A company's goal is maximization of profit, so don't assume they intend anything else. The activitypub userbase is too small to be a significant addition to their userbase but in this way they can destroy it before it escapes their control. They don't take risks. Mastodon could seriously compete with threads and it's gaining popularity. If one more big boom happens it might be too late to stop the fediverse from competing with meta in the most cost efficient way possible. Do not be lured in by the false sense of security, meta wants us to help maximize their profit. We aren't doing that right now so Meta wants to stop us (or limit us, whatever they deem more profitable)
It is as you say, but look at the difference. Allowing metaverse to grow is only going to hurt them, while the potential profits from the metaverse could be massive. They deemed it a risk worth taking because of the potential success. Meta won't leave the fate of lemmy up to chance, because they decided we are not very likely to disappear in time.
The metaverse (that game) was released before it was done in any way for the marketing hype, but they are still working on the VR headsets. Once those are ready for mass adoption, the metaverse will have a comeback, and a hard one. People love sucking on marketing titties, and that won't be any different.
Meta's involvement is to "poison pill" fediverse if it really starts to take off. Or just outright buy the bigger/best parts and leave the rest wither...