Here’s everything we know about it so far:
- It will use ActivityPub.
- It will be a side app of Instagram.
- It will most likely be called Threads.
- Your Instagram verification status will transfer over.
- There will be easy discovery tools in place: Your Instagram followers will be able to follow you on Threads as well (they won’t transfer over automatically).
What do you think?
Meta is in it for profit. So you have to ask what they’re stand to gain by offering a federated service (presumably for free). Do they think they can get free data, perhaps? I have no idea, but it’s tempting to want to block them just in case. Costing ActivityPub maintainers money so you can steal user data to sell for money isn’t exactly ethical…
I’m trying to think generously, but struggle to imagine other ways they might be able to profit off the Fediverse.
I think the Fediverse stuff is just a way of showing how open they are and differentiating themselves from twitter.
Twitter is doing stupid things but normal people find Mastodon confusing. I think Meta may be on to something here that appeals to normal people, and conveniently they can connect to the mastodon community too. Those are also the people who Meta will profit from.
I don’t think it’s a great thing, but in some ways it may benefit the rest of the Mastodon / Fediverse community if normal people are made somewhat more comfortable.