this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2025
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Good news I guess!
Are there any instances that are actually federated with Threads?
I knew that there where some larger masto servers that tried to stay neutral but at least a lot of them switched when meta basically said they remove fact checking and let sexism and racism run ranpant without any consequences
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Good, the sooner they run it into the ground the better.
Last time I checked Threads was 95% brand and influencer posts anyway.
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I got out just in time, it seems.
How much longer will Bluesky survive without doing the same?
you were in?!
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You've got ads. Eventually but full-blown ads.
Not just HV but full-blown ads.
Whats threads??
Meta/Facebook made a Twitter/X clone called Threads. They enabled activity pub, so that Fediverse users can be followed from Threads and vice versa.
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Threads. A thread:
🧵
(2/x) The inciting incident was the muskrat proposing a purchase of Twitter.
lol. I mean. It was inevitable considering every other shit meta product.
Still doesn't support instance migration tho, hmm
BlueSky is next
BlueSky has some novel monetization concepts but yes, I think they will eventually find that those are not sustainable and will introduce ads eventually.
How hard is it to run a platform charging a couple dollars a month so that you don't need to turn into a ghoulish capitalist nightmare? Like, really. If even one of them went the "no ads, ever, just a tiny monthly fee" wouldn't that be better? Wouldn't everyone flock there? Is everyone so dumb that they think these huge sites will run for free?? No.. wait I think I've answered my own question..
It's not about being dumb and expecting stuff for free but a general anger towards subscription based models. Fair models exist and are possible, but are a collateral of the general hate.
Then, free alternatives exist, and believe it or not, some people do not have a tiny monthly fee they could spare or do not want to pay for something that a free alternative exists.
Threema tried exactly that, and failed comically.
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I donate to the fediverse. My new server does a monthly state of the server thing and I use that as a reminder to donate. Considering server costs, I believe I cover more than my share, but most people probably don't donate at all, and frankly the people running the server deserve compensation for their efforts and that is never included in costs.
I might feel differently if it was a sub, though. It's a world of difference between me choosing to donate and someone reaching into my wallet on a monthly basis. Idk. But I'm definitely not having ads.
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A social app? Impossible. Everyone will just say "But I get Facebook for free!"
People pay to remove ads from YouTube, Netflix, Amazon etc.
The point wouldn't be to put people off, you can still push the platform to the masses as "free". It's just that once you're there if you find the ads annoying or you don't want your feed algo'd to death, then it has a "remove ads" paid option that currently platforms all lack..
Facebook makes ~$68/user/month. No one is going to pay anything close to that to remove ads.
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Sounds good to me but the ideal of social media is to network with as many people as possible. There are billions of people globally who would never want to pay or couldn't even afford a few dollars. Which would leave it as some kind of niche premium service that can't connect to a lot of people.
That's also besides the fact that the purpose of social media now is to connect brands and political groups to you over any actual connection with other people.
Disable ads for $2 a month?
Just anything this doesn't then try to bleed people in every conceivable way..
All the algo manipulation comes from an over reliance on ad income. If a social network put its costs + a modest profit onto premium users what would that look like?
Surely at some point a network that can honestly say "we aren't reliant on sponsors" is going to be appealing to enough people. (Even if there is then a free ad supported tier for those who don't have an option - it would hardly be worse than what they've currently got)
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Isn't the bluesky client open source? That would make it harder to force ads on everyone.
~~I don’t think so.~~
But there is an API you can build clients for.
Looks like the client app is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app
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Sure, but ultimately the ads would be fed by the service, not the client. And they can always do like Twitter and Reddit did and kill the API so no third-party clients are functional.
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Remember to send financial support to your server
Wish I could, but I haven't found a way to do that. I guess the admin is working on it?
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My instance preemptively defederated from Threads, but I'm assuming those ads are going to be served to Threads users via API, right, and not federated out?
If Meta threw up ads as ActivityPub objects they'd probably be blocked so fast by every instance.
My instance preemptively defederated from Threads, but I’m assuming those ads are going to be served to Threads users via API, right, and not federated out?
Things don't really federate out with ActivityPub, they federate in. To receive off-site content, you have to subscribe to it.
Who is going to subscribe to a Threads ad bot?
Another bot that may be running on your instance, so all those things start showing up for everyone else.
Right, and I'm assuming Threads works on the Mastodon-style user follow paradigm, which means, currently, anyway, Lemmy wouldn't be able to follow them directly.
But the ad-bot could, in theory, tag a Lemmy community and have that show up on Lemmy (at least, that seems to be how Mastodon content arrives here).
How long before they introduce some sweet new fascism features?
"Our new GestureSupport("Gestapo") means you can now upvote by striking your arm up and to the right..."
That is probably already implemented in the algorithm, currently disabled, but the control knob will start turning up as needed
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