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   Paul McBride (thepaulmcbride@indieweb.social)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 11:48:33 JST Paul McBride

   My excitement for Mastodon isn't really for Mastodon, its for #ActivityPub and the #OpenWeb.

   The web is a tool for human connection that has been hi-jacked by corporations. We've traded our attention for convenience and it feels like the pendulum is starting to swing the other way.

   • Embed this notice
     alarig (alarig@hostux.social)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 11:48:31 JST alarig

     in reply to

     @ThePaulMcBride Automattic is a lot more on the opensource/free-software side of development than a lot of other tech companies, so by default I’m confident about their good intentions. E.g. WordPress is already compatible with the fediverse thanks to a plug-in they’re maintaining.
     If Tumblr has to be sold to another company in the future, it could be different, though.

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   • Embed this notice
     Paul McBride (thepaulmcbride@indieweb.social)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 11:48:32 JST Paul McBride

     in reply to

     This is great news! The one caveat is that Tumblr will soon be the largest member of the fediverse by a huge margin. They need to be a member, not the owner.

     #ActivityPub is vulnerable to the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish manoeuvre that big tech companies are fond off. Let’s hope the play nice but let’s prepare for if they don’t.

     https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/

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     Max Riethmuller (TechLife) (techlife@indieweb.social)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 12:21:58 JST Max Riethmuller (TechLife)

     in reply to

     @ThePaulMcBride yes 100%. Opportunities and Threats is how we have to see it. Like a good capitalist haha. It's potentially good news for the fediverse, but we have to watch tumblr like a hawk to see if their intent is about more than just increasing their reach. Even that in itself can be a risk. If there is one player on the network no matter how altruistic, whose scale is much larger than other instances, then they can tend to dictate the evolution of the network simply by weight of numbers

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     maarten brouwers (murb@todon.nl)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 12:22:10 JST maarten brouwers

     in reply to

     @ThePaulMcBride automatic is probably also responsible for a big chunk of the rss/atom feeds in the world? (As the maker of Wordpress, and also tumblr supports rss)

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     Ryan Smith (realitythreek@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 22-Nov-2022 12:22:13 JST Ryan Smith

     in reply to

     @ThePaulMcBride Luckily the other instances will always be able to defederate if it doesn’t work out. I’m currently optimistic though.

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