Won’t the amount of users using meta effectively be a ddos attack on the smaller instances though?
I hadn’t really considered that. My primary concern was more around ‘outvoicing’ the non-threads based instances.
Basically, even a tiny fraction of their users being engaged would almost instantaneously be an extinction level event for what would become the “old” fediverse. De-federation early with problematic instances pretty much killed the growth the lemmy could have seen, even though I do agree it was important and necessary. Right now if I go to Top of 1 Hour on Lemmy.world, I only need to go 3-4 pages deep to have seen all the posts from all the federated instances that have been submitted in the past hour. Maybe 100-300 tops. Within that, the total number of comments in this corner of the fediverse is equally low, and I think we’re likely in some of the most active regions of the fediverse (although we’re kind-of flying blind).
If we assume even 1/10th or 1/100th the rate of engagement comparing a current lemmy user (which I think is not very charitable) to a future threads user, and if we assume we currently have around 70,000 active users (which again, not very charitable), they’ll only need 700,000 - 7,000,000 subscriptions to become “most” of the content on the fediverse. This is where the network interactions aspects becomes critical, because they instantly become superconnectedness in graph theory explains much of the emergent phenomena we see around things like post popularity and virality.
Basically, Meta can come in and swamp us with content through pure numbers, and if federated, there is nothing we can do to stop them. Likewise, if not federated, we’re relegated to a backwater position in the fediverse; it will become almost impossible for any non-threads based content to find its way to the top. This is fundamental to the math behind how these kinds of networks function. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
I’m not trying to be a pessimist. Like you I’m trying to be a realist about the implications of federating with meta and the considerations and consequences that come along with it. I’m more concerned around the implications when I look at it through a theoretical lens.
I don’t know what the answer is, but de-federation seems preferable to extinction.
Corgana@startrek.website 10 months ago
Nope, because Threads users will be visiting Threads, not sh.tijust.works (or mastodon.social or whatever). So even if 10,000,000 Threads followers decide to follow a single mastodon.social account, that account’s instance only syncs it with Threads, not every single user.
Unless I missed something, they’re not. I’m pretty sure they haven’t commented on the topic whatsoever.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Which could still be millions?
LMAO, I don’t think you missed something. There sure are a LOT of people that really want meta here with no benefits listed and only vague reasons why the other is wrong, that sound a lot like sway techniques. There are a few libertarians too, but mostly the first one.
Corgana@startrek.website 10 months ago
AFAIK, there is only one Threads.net
I hate and don’t trust Meta, so the main benefit for me would be the ability to follow Threads users from my nonprofit, ad free, tracker free, Mastodon account I already have. I don’t want an account with Meta.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
That is the first actual benefit I’ve seen, lol. I won’t be following any threads users, so it wouldn’t be a benefit. I also don’t know a single soul that is a threads user either.
That’s not how it works. When you’re federated together, you get a copy of every post on your server. Someone else said that that can be avoided, but I doubt threads will do anything in the other instance’s favor unless they get something out of it.
ShittyKopper@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 months ago
sharedInbox handles this.
mastodon.social sends a single federation activity to www.threads.net’s sharedInbox. threads’s internal systems handle all the visibility and routing to followed users and whatnot. the same thing happens in the opposite direction for threads->mastodon (or whoever).
now in theory this is an optional part of the specification and you can in fact send one activity per person if you really want to, but considering how widespread it is you’d have to be intentionally and explicitly malicious to not use a sharedInbox if the remote server indicates it supports it.
pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
You know a lot about the infrastructure of activity pub.