@FfaerieOxide huh? How is that supposed to be an analogy? You are infinitely safer interacting with a Threads user here than by actually using Threads itself. Like, I don't get it. Do you guys want to get more people on the Fediverse? Do you want to convince your friends or just turn the Fediverse into the default way of communicating with people so that if you meet a new person at a cafe or a bar to simply ask "hey, what's your fedi address?" without them giving you a weird stare and ask you what's that thing? Or are you just implying that we should just have, like, our own castle, where only we can socialize online and the other people would simply be some foreigners of some sort?
Yes, that change can happen even in time. But with a social network like Threads joining in with hundreds of millions of people you have the opportunity to show, at least to people you know, but not only, live, what it is like to get on a platform that respects your privacy, doesn't bother you with ads of any sort, have a more sane feed that you as a user can control, and still keep up with the latest stuff they care about. Threads was never and never will be about all this stuff.
Sure, they will try all their best to, e.g. rank you lower in the feed or do a Pixelfed thing on whatever. Or some people will look at you like a Linux promoter or something. But if more people in the mainstream see the Fediverse as a valid platform and not some sort of a niche thing that geeks and hackers like to use, then they'll be more likely to join.
What many of you fail to understand is that Meta joining in is an opportunity to freely advertise the Fediverse to the masses. Sure, not the whole 100 mln. or so Threads users will join, but imo, in terms of user numbers, this part of the Fediverse not owned by Meta will have a lot to gain. And when that happens, we'll have a lot more leverage if/when they do nasty stuff. Or just shut their federation for good.
And one more thing: I get those that are defederating from Meta by principle, because of how Meta behaves as a company. But defederating with Meta strictly because of the bad users there simply implies that all of those 100 mln. users are bad faith. Are you really believing that 100 mln. people in this world among of which some of your friends and family members are all transphobes, homophobes, nazis etc.? If so, then you have a pretty gloomy view of the world.
I mean, sure, many users will be problematic (as there are on many Fedi instances that one might or might not have blocked) which would need the ban hammer a lot. Probably even temporary defederation untill the situation gets resolved.
But I like to think that these people are a minority in this whole world. 🙂 @hedge@flora_explora