this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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On the one hand I can totally understand this reaction by Kev, on the other hand, by completely locking off all discussions like this, means that there's no way to change things for the better.
Granted, it's Meta, they're not to be trusted, but still, a discussion, if one has the time, wouldn't be too bad an idea.
I think it would be incredibly naive and foolish to believe Meta has any kind of pure motives for this.
One of the biggest corporations in the world reaching out to its competitor to try to get them to talk "off the record" about "confidential details"... Sounds like a pretty blatant scheme to get them to reveal confidential details about their competitor's product.
Or maybe Meta has broken with decades of its own conduct, and several centuries of capitalism, in order to reach out in good faith to their competitor. LOL.
Its a really immature and niave response from Kev. Information is power, he's chosen to operate without knowledge for internet points.
Meta think there is potential to enlarge their market and make money, Kev's response won't impact their business making decisions.
Kev should have gone to the meeting to understand what Meta are planning. That would help him figure out how to deal with Meta entering the space.
I don't expect he could shape their approach but knowing they want to do X, Y or Z might make certain features/fixes a priority so it doesn't impact everyone else
I think you are insinuating that because meta has money and power, he owes it to the community to hear them out. That's a capitalistic perspective that seems centered around either making money or having a larger 'market'. I wouldn't assume that this is the status quo for everyone involved in the fediverse.
Also, if Meta isn't willing to share its plans publicly, only to the owners of the largest instances online, I question their motives.
@macallik and if you scroll down the comments, Byron from Universeodon, who did take the earlier meeting, did provide some vague points from the meeting. Relating to your point about big instances, it seems likely that FB wants to throw money at them so that they won't become overwhelmed by the ensuing traffic (unlike the rest of us, I guess...) so they can demonstrate that the Instagram bridge (it's an IG product) works.
@giallo @madjo @nameless_prole @stevecrox
That is good to know. That doesn't negate the fact that this is the same company:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/app-developers-sue-facebook-over-alleged-anticompetitive-scheme-n1117551
@macallik
Absolutely. If this is true then for the other small to mid-size instances it's not just an existential threat philosophically but technically. They're expecting Threads onboarding might just knock out instances because of the traffic. Might as well limit or block just for your own performance metrics.
Massive corporations never "throw money" at people or things without strings. I'd be very wary about what taking money from Meta would mean.
Having a larger market = having a larger network = greater network effects for content
Having Meta join with Mastodon might actually sway people off twitter and into the fediverse where it will be easier to migrate over to a different instance.
It's foolish not to hear them out, you accomplish nothing. This isn't some silicon valley episode where he has some arkane secrets that meta engineers couldn't figure out that he might leak. Meeting with them is zero risk and he would gain more information on what they're planning.
This is not a proper talk by meta that you could just "hear them out". They explicitly said off the record and confidential, there's no reason for that if it's something innocuous. There 100% would be an NDA involved.
The fediverse is all about being open, starting with an NDA is definitely not "zero risk", you can not slip up ever, or you're going to be destroyed by lawyers, this is the exact opposite of "zero risk".
They plan on showing demos of their product to them or talking about potential features it might have. Boom, they require an NDA.
I don't think you understand how the professional world works or how common NDAs are. I've signed NDAs while going through interview processes at FAANG and other large companies just so that we can talk freely about projects I might work on. Especially for a company like Facebook where everything they do will get about a dozen news articles written, they're going to make you sign an NDA for any conversation about an unreleased product.
I don't think your assumption on how well I understand how the professional world works is correct.
I understand very well that signing any NDA is by no means "zero risk", it has a definite risk attached to it. Declining it is costly in some way, but also has definite advantages.
I also understand that very rarely is the phrasing ever "this conversation will be off the record", but rather some phrasing including the specific topics that may not be shared, like you say for example, product details. Blanket phrasings like this are always very sketchy.
Nah.
I think you are seriously underestimating meta here. They know knowledge is power too, and they have an enormous amount of resources to ensure that their information is shared in the way that exposes them the least and benefits them the most. Any one person is just going to be at a severe disadvantage and is much more likely to do damage than get something positive out of it.
It doesn't need to be said that Meta is purely driven by profit - that is any corporation. But Meta is incompetent and failing - yet still a behemoth. If they want to pour millions of dollars into the fediverse, then we don't we let them? They would presumably just be another site on the fediverse.
I totally support them joining on assuming it doesn't change the fundamental structure of the system.
Sitting to an off the record coveraation will be used as a hook agaiant you in the future.
They have enough lawyer money to bleed you dry, and your attendance (probably sign some NDA) will be used as basis.
It feels like Meta has to pay like a billion dollars in fines every few weeks in europe for violations. And they don't seem to plan on stopping (based on the fact that it happens every few weeks). Even faintly hoping that you could even have the smallest chance of moving even the smallest gear in Meta by appearing in such a meeting is complete delusion.
You would still know what Meta is thinking of doing on the Fediverse, and adjust course accordingly. Now we 1) know nothing, and 2) have closed off an avenue to gain information.
They chose to close off that avenue by making it a closed, off the books, invite only meeting. And as other posters have already mentioned, its likely that the people that do show up might have to sign NDAs or something similar. So we might not have learned anything anways.
Curious if you have a rough example of what type of positive information that will be gained from the secret, closed-off meeting, and how it could benefit the community?
How do you think we could frontrun one of the largest tech companies in the world?
But if he attended he wouldn't legally be able to share what he learned - or do anything that reveals details of the meeting without facing the wrath of Facebook's legal department.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Who would know that? Surely not the average user, since we weren't all invited to this meeting, and everyone who was would be under NDA...
You would only ever know what Meta would be willing to tell you anyway. Also, there's the whole NDA thing.
Meta intends to harvest content and kill off competition before it poses a threat.
Off-the-records convos w/ repeated bad faith actors seems like a liability.