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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Technology
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I think that ActivityPub's path to success is to integrate multiple forms of media into a single, messy but interoperable platform. It's like Twitter, Reddit, YouTube and Blogspot in a single place, without needing to sacrifice your preferences. The success is not on specific actors like Lemmy, Kbin, Mastodon... or ~~Threats~~ Threads.
The article mentions Eugen's post on Threads joining. I think Eugen underestimates the threats.
A shrinking network is considerably worse than a stagnant one; infrastructure costs take into account the former large size, people start relying on donations and tools that won't be there any more, so goes on. And even the fact that users are leaving prompts other users to disengage, specially if they need to choose "should I spend my time interacting with people in Mastodon/Lemmy/Kbin, or in Threads?". So no, when Threads abandons ActivityPub down the line, Mastodon won't be exactly where it is now, it'll be in a far worse position.
For a simple analogy: Pre-Threads Fediverse will be like a 100k inhabitants city. Post-Threads Fediverse will be like a 1M city decimated back into 100k inhabitants.
I also think that Eugen puts too much weight on brand recognition. Specially as Mastodon is not as widely known as it should.
Not sure this tracks. Mastodon, on the fediverse, is stupidly dominant. Like, numerically, the fediverse is mastodon with some other stuff. Even in absolute terms, mastodon's numbers alone qualify it as a social media platform in its own right, though a small one.
Part of this is mastodon's brand recognition. Eugen has been subtly but surely astute with his business decisions, I'd say, walking the line between being a non-profit FOSS project and a normal business (on the mastodon webpage, and now in media, Eugen identifies himself as the CEO).
And now, European governments are using his software to establish their presence on the web, where you should recall Eugen is European (German).
Compared to Meta/Threads, sure Mastodon's brand recognition can't compete. But I wouldn't underestimate the brand recognition he's got. Lots of people now know the name "mastodon".
By "as it should", I mean "as society in general should recognise it". Context here is important - Mastodon is dominant in comparison with other parts of the Fediverse, but still tiny in comparison with Threads, Twitter and the likes. It's a medium fish surrounded by tiny fish, saying "okay, that shark over there may join our pond".