Can’t a corporation just enter the space whenever they want to? Can’t they start or even buy out larger instances? Even if Lemmy does take off, wouldn’t this inevitably happen anyway if the space gets popular enough?
Can’t a corporation just enter the space whenever they want to? Can’t they start or even buy out larger instances? Even if Lemmy does take off, wouldn’t this inevitably happen anyway if the space gets popular enough?
Think about email. A lot of people use Gmail, Hotmail, or other big email providers. However, Oxford University can run its own email server for its own university community. The EFF can run their own email server for their own purposes. Google or Microsoft doesn’t get to dictate to Oxford or the EFF how they run their email server; and they can’t stand in the way of Oxford and the EFF sending email to one another.
Great example. Fedverse sounds like a space that corporations would have no interest in as there is no opportunity to create a monopoly.
That doesn’t really follow. Google doesn’t need to be able to create a monopoly over email to benefit from running Gmail, for example; consumer Gmail is basically a loss-leader for Google Workspaces, the money-making arm of Google Apps.
The only viable way to control the Fediverse is an embrace, extend, and extinguish approach.
Anything less and you become a Fediverse backwater instead of a monopoly.
This sounds exactly like how they would think! Especially the reach critical mass and defederate from everyone else.
And harvesting data of course.
Could you describe in detail what you’re saying here?
Well they hoard data by hosting your emails? They surely feed all that stuff into their AI:s.