A growing number of instances (mainly of Mastodon so far) are signing an ‘Anti-Meta Fedi Pact’, pledging to block any instance owned by Meta in the fediverse.
I don’t know how big this will get or how effective it will be, but if you run a fediverse instance, you should take a look at this https://fedipact.online/
I just want to say, look at Google.
Google came into the browser scene with a far better track record for the common good and better intentions than meta.
Something like 96% of browsers are now downstream from Google’s code. Recently, Firefox got a lot of flak from companies for having a “pop-out” that let’s you do PIP with any video. The standard (guess who it’s written by) makes the feature optional, but there’s a “disable PIP” flag part of it that Firefox chose to ignore.
Suddenly, I need a plugin to spoof the user-agent, because sites are blocking Firefox. Even with that, things like Google maps have stopped working completely in Firefox. I’m ride or die on this issue so I’m not switching, but my family members I convinced to switch have abandoned ff.
The fediverse should be able to handle corporate involvement - but we said the same about the web. I’m not eager to test it.
If they get any fraction of the market, they’ll dictate extensions to the standard, then split us as groups are split between good suggestions, and those realizing we’re losing control. Meta will try to take over and monetize the network - that’s what a corporation is. Even if right now every single person there is doing it for the right reason, sooner rather than later it will start looking for where the money is
The fediverse is way too young and vulnerable right now… There’s going to be efforts to kill or control it, there’s no need to invite them in
I agree with your point but I am curious about the sites blocking Firefox part. I have been only using Firefox now for many years and apart from one or two poorly built government websites, have never run into a site that didn’t work.