From the new terms:
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Looks like FF is on track for enshittification, I (unfortunately and with great sadness) called it last year (and was downvoted for it lol)
So in theory he could pay tons of money to ruin it, but that wouldn’t be enshittification. The protocol allows server switching without losing contacts and history, so a real exodus from his sock-puppet instances would still be possible. Therefore nobody would be locked into his instances and forced to pay.
No, I’m not suggesting that people on non-elon servers would be forced to pay. I’m saying when 3 billion instances all say you need to pay, and 1000 instances say you don’t, to a society that doesn’t know what an instance is? That will just become known to the average person as “The fediverse is that thing elon musk created. You gotta pay to use it.”
Even though none of that statement is true, perception becomes reality. And sure, your instance COULD block each elon instance one by one. But it’d be faster to defederate from all, and then only federate with non-elon instances.
…but how do you find 1000 instances in a pool of 3 billion?
Enshitification is never about the tech, or the possible. It’s ALWAYS about the money.
Sorry, I just don’t see that happening. “Truth” Social is just a mastodon instance, and yet mastodon still exists. Enshittification is merely the process of giving something for free and rent seeking once it becomes popular. This can’t be done to a protocol.