their central argument:
[…] but the gist was that Instagram had reached out to one of the larger Fediverse servers and asked the person who runs to have a meeting ‘off the record’. That person turned them down and told other members of the Fediverse what happened. The general consensus is that this was going to be a monetary offer to allow Instagram to further colonize the Fediverse by purchasing one of the larger servers.
And therein lies the problem: if the majority of users gravitate to a few large servers, then that leaves those larger servers vulnerable to exploitation.
A hard link to an instance is an issue. Instead of depending of a “centralized power”, you depend on a “local power”. This is, probably, irrelevant in the begging, but later it could cause a drama similar to reddit - like you build a community with 100K people and then instance owner comes to you and say that you must do “X” or leave.
The ideal way to address this would be a possibility to move an account AND a community from one instance to another.
Here’s the Mail from Meta in question: Kec Quirk via Fosstodon.
Why should Instagram buy some instance? The software is FOSS, they have a shitton of servers, they can host an instance that is a thousand times more powerful than all of the Feddiverse combined just with their idle stuff. Defederate it if it sucks, but the goal should not be a bunch of ivory tower hermit fortresses with the bridges drawn up.
The value is always the user base, never the hardware or software. Social media companies know that very well.
The value is always the user base, never the hardware or software. Social media companies know that very well.
