Do we know any more about the plans of Tumblr for when it will join the Fediverse?
Matt did say "ASAP" at the time. Start of July saying they're still working on it, did he simply underestimate how big of an undertaking it would be?
I would say the level of contempt would be much less though.
I never used tumblr personally but I know I would see screenshots of it all the time elsewhere. I also don't view them as a huge corp that's done anything particularly insidious
Also I have a feeling they lose something valuable (The ability to serve ads) for something not as important (Access to more publcly available content)
PS. They can of course serve ads, but what stops lemmy.world from connecting to them and sharing the same content ad free?
what stops lemmy.world from connecting to them and sharing the same content ad free?
That's true, I hadn't thought about that, but I wonder if he thinks that maybe Tumblr isn't popular enough to see a big loss in doing that, since at most it would just get more interactions from a community that wouldn't have joined a proprietary social network in the first place, so the missed ads would have always been missed, while in this way he gains more "free" engagement
About the porn, they could probably defederate from the largest NSFW instances at least
Once you look into it, you realize the interoperability isn't there like some claim. "Joining the fediverse" as a single instance means nothing. Activitypub doesn't make everything instantly interoperable, and being able to crosspost on everything is a large (and pretty futile) undertaking.
What do you mean underestimate? He said "ASAP". That means "as soon as possible", not "very soon". ASAP can mean next week, or three years from now. He didn't underestimate, he simply gave no time frame.
Maybe it's just me, I know that it literally means "any time", but I always felt it is used to say "very soon" in practice.
Anyway, I was just curious, I wouldn't want them to rush it
That's a good point honestly, although the guy sounds like he means well, since he's also behind WordPress and he's planning to add ActivityPub to it too
I don't have links, sorry, but I've seen posts on the fediverse from someone who claims to work there and someone who claims to have worked there up until recently.
From them it seems that they are technically still working on it but in a way that it's clearly either a low priority or something that is now mostly a gesture that is never going to be done. The reason being that Tumblr isn't in great financial condition right now and once they started thinking about federating it became clear that there's no financial gain for what would be a decent amount of work.
Basically, it doesn't seem like there's any good reason for an independently large and profit-driven social media platform to federate. In the case of Threads, they're most likely driven by avoiding anti-trust activities.
For-profit entities can work here. Mozilla, Flipboard, Medium seem to all be having a crack. But for-profit social media entities? Dunno, seems like a bust. And if you want a Tumblr like platform here, we might have to build it ourselves (misskey/calckey/firefish might meet your needs in the mean time).