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Big companies aren't taking over the fediverse.

The fediverse is taking over big companies.

@evan that's what I'm hoping. I worry a little about EEE.

@arcade break that down for me. Who embraced, extended and extinguished XMPP?

@evan
Google embraced standards via XMPP in gtalk. They then extended them in proprietary ways, with Hangouts rather than gtalk. They then deprecated gtalk in favor of Hangouts, and will finally extinguish it.

@arcade this. And while XMPP was not entirely extinguished, it took a huge hit. Google got a lot of good press from it (from FOSS people, no less) and then when enough people moved to GTalk thinking "well it's still just XMPP!", they did a bait-and-switch and boom, no XMPP in GTalk suddenly.

@evan

@rysiek @arcade

So, in this theory, the growth of GTalk was due to its support of XMPP?

@evan not only, nor even mainly due to XMPP, no.

My hypothesis is that they never cared about XMPP in the first place, but it was easy to deploy and gave them a nice PR boost from the techies that started promoting them with glee.

"No downside".

And then when enough users joined GTalk — partially brought in by the techies, partially calmed down by techies not warning them against it — they shut down XMPP s2s and moved away from the protocol eventually.

@arcade

@rysiek @arcade

Google dropping XMPP wasn't the cause of the problems with that network. It was a symptom of the problems with that network.

You need to read what "embrace, extend and extinguish" means.

It doesn't mean "support an open standard for a while then drop it."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace%

en.wikipedia.orgEmbrace, extend, and extinguish - Wikipedia

@evan I am well aware of what that means, thank you.

I agree that XMPP had (and continues to have) a bunch of problems, in no small aprt related to the XEP compatibility matrix insanity — which to be fair they are now finally trying to reign in.

And I am not saying GTalk leaving "cased problems with the network", which sounds like implying *technical* problems. I am saying XMPP was basically mined for user base and techies' goodwill.

@arcade

@rysiek I think you vastly overestimate the importance of XMPP to the success, such as it was, of GTalk.

Regardless, we agree that it was not an intentional strategy to join the network, create incompatible non-standard extensions, and use that advantage to take over the network.

@evan yes, we largely agree on that.

But as I mentioned in a different branch of this thread, harm des not need to be intentional or pre-planned to be harm nonetheless.

I do not need to assume intentional pre-planned malice on Meta's part to be very seriously concerned about P92.

Fedi is tiny compared to Meta. Power differential is immense. Incentives are completely different. There's a lot to be concerned about.

And saying "fediverse is taking over big companies" just brushes that aside.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@evan and in fact, not assuming conspiracy or malice makes it even worse!

Let's assume Google (and Facebook) had joined XMPP without malice. And XMPP came out much worse off for it.

Let's assume Google had joined the RSS bandwagon with Reader without malice. And the RSS ecosystem got hobbled when they shuttered it.

Let's assume Meta is joining fedi without malice… 👀

@evan I am not saying this is necessarily a completely bad thing, though, either!

I want Facebook to be forced to open up their protocol. I want all social media platforms to be compatible on some basic protocol level.

But this has to be done very, very carefully. Especially when the power differential is as cartoonishly humongous as between Meta nad fedi.

So when I see a super-optimistic take, I recoil a bit. Because I remember those from the time when Google was joining XMPP. 👀

@rysiek I've made the point at least once since Meta announced their intentions that it's a) going to be bad for AP and the wider fediverse b) pre-emptive defederation is probably a good idea but not going to help against a), c) the basic problem is Meta being so huge, and d) the _basic_ basic problem is capitalism

If we want a sustainable internet infrastructure, we can't have these megacorporations. Break 'em up.
@evan