My though process goes something like this:

1. Good! Here's a big central entry point to the Fediverse, it solves the issue of people being confused by a big list of instances and not knowing where to start.
2. Wait, doesn't this mean that they can push ads out to people not on meta. Like, if you are following @steve@meta.com, then you could see posts from steve "[sponsored] download the super app game" because Meta are in control of what posts they push out to followers.
3. But the Fediverse runs on a protocol ActivityPub, which can be compared to email. Who suffers if you block everyone on your email server from being able to email Gmail addresses? All you'll get is people leaving the server
4. But if Meta have such a big part of the userbase, and people not on Meta come to rely on it, what happens when Meta defederates (which will probably happen)? What if Meta propose a change to the protocol, will everyone have to follow their lead? Isn't that a massive problem (like how almost all browsers are now based on Chrome)?
5. But if a big competitor comes in the meantime (e.g. Google), doesn't that mean we'll have two big networks that connect with each other, so Meta has less power?

So in conclusion, I have no idea whether this is a good thing. But I don't see a good reason to block them. After all, if you personally don't want to follow users on Meta then just... don't? They are building a Mastodon/Twitter-like platform rather than a Lemmy-like platform, so the immediate impacts are more to Mastodon, so we can wait and watch and see what happens.

At first glance I think it's a kneejerk reaction. Most of the people here are pretty tech savvy and are here because they're not interested in centralised systems, so they're going to be able to decide on their own whether or not to block company-owned instances.

But... there's precedence there. Facebook/Meta might not have the trail of bodies that Google has but I don't think anyone is foolish enough to think there's anything sincere or philanthropic in their motives. The fact that they're putting everything behind an NDA seems directly opposite to the entire ethos of the fediverse, which isn't a great start.

I think an abundance of caution wouldn't be a bad thing. I stopped using Facebook because it degraded so badly and they kept overstepping boundaries. It would be a real loss if the same thing started to happen here.

Good luck to them! I reckon fediverse will be pretty much impossible for them to monetise in any real way and they’ll almost definitely give up.

I think a preemptive block is unwarranted and signals that any company who interested in engaging would may have to pass some kind of purity test by the Fedi-elites. All very tribal.

Vigilance for sure. I imagine fb is more interested in converting twitter users / companies than fedi. (Hence nda)

I think it's probably a good idea.

Did you know the Neanderthals were arguably more cultured, social, and collaborative than our Human ancestors? Yes the Neanderthals aren't our direct ancestors; they were another competing hominid. Humans killed them - but they also outbred them, including by breeding with them.

Humans are social creatures; the largest federated instances grow far faster than the smaller ones. Not just in absolute number, but in percentages. And Capitalism doesn't want competition in a free market; it wants a monopoly as quickly as possible. Any time a platform represents a threat to Meta's user-share, it buys it (Instagram, WhatsApp), and if it can't, it copies it (TikTok > Reels).

If a known name of a private umbrella like Meta/Facebook, Alphabet/Google, or Microsoft enters the fediverse, the following is likely to happen:

1. The fediverse gains notoriety, desirability and attention as private platforms enshittify.
2. It grows until this represents a threat to private platforms losing users to the fediverse.
3. [Meta]'s private users enter the fediverse via [Meta]'s instances; they're sponsored, accessible, visible or incentivised; they appear to have the lowest barrier for entry; they may integrate with the platforms they're still using.
4. New users in the fediverse in general likely join [Meta]'s instances; they're large, and where their families and friends are; they promise to be stable and have legal oversight; less likely to blackout from server error or admin corruption.
5. [Meta] slowly collects the majority of users in the fediverse.
6. [Meta] reaches a point of having >80% of the fediverse users anyway, and ceases the funding and technical support for federation and gateways, defederating and becoming a high-walled garden.
7. Other fediverse members are pressured by their colleagues, family/friends etc to make a [Meta] account so they can maintain contact. They won't leave [Meta] because they'd lose contact with anybody staying.
8. Other fediverse instances are forgotten as their users are pressured back onto private platforms.
9. [Meta] has successfully gained an effective monopoly over the fediverse.
10. [Meta]'s fediverse enshittifies.

TLDR: I think the Fedipact (or something like it) is necessary for the fediverse to ever become what we hope it one day can be. To allow self-interested private entities to stack territory in it will eventually see it consumed.

Here's some more background: https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110522409703366548

Fuck Zuckerberg

From my perspective (although I run my own instance so feel free to ignore my opinion) I'm happy to federate with meta/tumblr/mozilla/whomever

It means I can talk to people who are more technically challenged without having to sign into a facebook/instagram/etc account. I don't think embrace, extend, extinguish applies here because if they defederate we're just back to now-- we lose no standing.