The EEE attempts on a major open platform haven't even reached step 3, arguably. ActiveX, XServe, Flash and Silverlight all failed spectacularly at their goal of co-opting and extinguishing the concept of the internet. Considering how Meta has no meaningful leverage over the Fediverse community, I think your fears are unwarranted. Best case scenario, Meta plays by the rules and federates well-regulated content into everyone's feeds like Twitter with less extremism. Worst-case scenario, Meta goes crazy and takes all the normies with them to their closed Threads landscape, returning things to how they are now (dense with nerds and misfits). I don't think Meta enthusiasts or current Fediverse denizens would care either way.

I deleted my account this morning, with a backup natch - nice thing about Mastodon, I can start up exactly where I left off, including whatever followers come over to the non-Meta side of the schism.

People act like the schism Fedi being small is a bad thing, I don't think we're supposed to interact with the entire planet as individuals. We apes do not have the capacity to handle it.