But here’s some good news. There’s no guarantee that Facebook will be successful on terms that matter to them. Unless a half billion people use their service, it’s probably not worth continuing, for a company the size of Facebook. Podcasting has withstood countless attacks like this, and has always been left standing as unsullied as ever.
Dave has been around the block a few times and has watched open technologies he’s created come under attack by BigCo’s. Some have held up better than others but his biggest and best creations; RSS and Podcasting have stood the test of time.
I’m no fan of Facebook/Meta. I believe it to be a terribly unethical company lead by a sociopath and want nothing to do with them. I’ve even made it know to their recruiters to remove me from any lists my name may show up on as a potential employee.
I have no idea what their end game is with ActivityPub and Mastodon’s API but I hope the open web is more than resilient enough to withstand it. I have to imagine Facebook will be monetizing their network using ads because Facebook is an ad network. How does Mastodon as a service and open source software handle that? Are there rules in place built into the software to identify ads so client applications can filter them out? Will any Mastodon client be able to connect to Facebook’s Project 92? I’m certain more questions will come to mind as we approach the announcement of it opening to the public.
Until then I’m cautiously optimistic Mastodon will stand up to a BigCo entering the network and I hope Eugene and his team manage to keep things open and honest for the rest of us.
If Facebook become jerks in the Fediverse I’ll cut them off in a heartbeat.