that's like saying we should fork threads or instagram or facebook. it wouldn't solve the interoperability problem that arises from intentional incompatibility from someone who has too much power and is willing to abuse it.

forking might give some choice to some instance operators, but it won't help the users who end up hurt in the cross fire of the jerk move, whether because they use an instance whose operator goes along with the jerk moves, or because they wanted to communicate with someone who does.

we have some safeguards because the software is free, and also because users can move.

but interoperability is not something that should be taken as lightly as mastodon has, and that it has because it could, because it was already big to care, big enough to start behaving like microsoft who figured they could reject ODF and force OOXML even while not being compatible with it; like google and facebook who interoperated through XMPP and then broke compatibility to make walled gardens.

if mastodon decides it wants to change the way users can move between instances, it could make it so that users could no longer move to instances that don't implement those changes, locking users in if/until other servers implemented compatible incompatibilities. that's the microsoft way, and it follows from having too much power. that power should be kept in check, not encouraged or defended.

CC: @Jirikiha@raphus.social @macacator@mastodon.social @MyWoolyMastadon@toot.community @oblomov@sociale.network @john@vyrse.social @engel@mastodon.social @everton137@vivaldi.net