I think it's both more than that and less than that. Unless I missed some news, Meta's newfound love for product openness has only really manifested in Llama and Threads—I haven't seen any evidence of shifts in their core products.
I think what's happened is that in both cases Meta knows that they don't really stand a chance of actually unseating the big players in that segment on their own, but that Meta can make a dent in their profit margins if they can dilute the value of owning that segment. Llama is squarely targeted at preventing anyone from owning AI. I think Threads is doing the same thing with microblogging. If Meta can't own a segment they're going to make darn sure that no one else can own it and use their profits from it to push Meta out of their core.
If it also makes the company look more palatable to regulators, that's a nice side effect, but I'm not sure it would work as the primary goal.
I think it's more about trying to keep your competitors busy defending their moat - so that they don't go on the offense and attack your moat.
Content is the input to the Meta ad engine. You can generate it on-platform, or you can bring it in from elsewhere if it is commoditized. (And commoditizing your complements often looks like breaking down your competitors’ moats.)
I don’t think it’s as cynical as a “salt the earth” strategy though, surely they (plan to) make profit from Threads and LLaMa regardless of what their competitors do? Threads users will drive ad revenue, Llama (theoretically, eventually) increases the quality bar for content, driving their main flywheel.
There's a reason why Threads was only conceptualized after Musk acquired Twitter and started talking about building an everything app. Pre-Musk Twitter was very content with its market and so wasn't a threat to anyone else. Musk's X was a different story (if he could execute on it, which at the time seemed more likely than it does now).
They’re also paying lip service to openness by spinning off their VR OS. Of course that doesn’t mean it’ll become any less proprietary, only available on more hardware.
It’s smart to join up with others when you’re the underdog. I think that’s all they’re doing.
Owning WhatsApp, Threads and Instagram makes them a big target for breakup. And an open system defuses that significantly.
I'm not sure that it has as much of an impact as you think it does. Threads would not be a significant target for regulator action regardless of openness—it doesn't have enough share of the market to be interesting. Meanwhile, the openness of Threads does nothing to alleviate the concerns of their dominance in every non-microblogging social media category.
This is a new product, so they start out open and then slowly close down as they acquire marketshare.
Is threads hoping to become "the" instance in the fediverse? Then they can impose their will across the rest of the fediverse.
threads: "oh, you have a single user instance and want to federate with us? Pay us $500 per user/year, and use our preferred server which allows us to sell ad space on your server"
Right now fediverse is growing and has very honest algorithms. Once Meta is on the scene, their "decentralized" timeline will look more enticing than others. It will be captivating and you'll prefer to hangout on their server with all nice extensions that just work there. With time, +90% of users won't bother looking on small isolated islands and you'll have facebook 2.0 in place.
Anyways, it is a fair fight. Meta coming to fediverse already means that things on this side are interesting.
1. The "social graph" was the new hotness then, everybody had to have it, just like AI now. An exec at Google convinced the company that Facebook was an existential threat, leading to some very questionable decisions bourne of a self-induced siege-mentality.
Why not? The Threads client will run ads. If users prefer the experience (integration to other Meta products, QoL, etc.) then they will use it and watch the ads. If they prefer other clients they will use those.
Probably
> Then they can impose their will across the rest of the fediverse.
Nah. The play at that point would be to just discontinue support for federation and lock all their users inside the new walled garden.
As to the "why" I think it's fairly obvious. If they integrate with everything, they'll eventually become the defacto platform and/or steer users and engagement to their other platforms with less friction.
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I know it’s still early and features are being built out, but my guess is the number is close to 0.
But of course there are chinks in TWitter's armor, specifically the whole blue check debacle and that Twitter itself is rapidly becoming 4chan (or even 8chan) and advertisers are understandably fleeing.
Still, the chance of success isn't great. Launching it under the iG brand was probably a good idea, better than under Facebook at least.
Still, when it comes to open source and integration with third-parties I keep thinking of the quote "open source is for losers" (that might come from this [1]), meaning all but the dominant player embrace interoperability and open source in a desperate attempt to topple the dominant player.
I have no idea what usage looks like but I'm glad they haven't given up. I know Google would've canceled it by now (and probably replaced it with something that looks kinda similar, has a different name/branding but no compatibility with the old thing, if chat apps are anything to go by).
I still say federation is something tech people care about but offers nothing of tangible value to end users. There hasn't been a successful federated technology since email. For a reason.
[1]: https://siliconangle.com/2014/05/29/only-loser-vendors-are-t...
Indeed NOSTR is completely fresh air and mindblowing. My account just works across any clients, doesn't need even need Internet nor electricity. I can print my note on a piece of paper and people can still verify that this is a verifiable text from me.
Really in love with the tech, didn't had this feeling for quite a while.
Mark Z was clear on Dwarkesh's podcast that when he has things open he does so because he thinks it will benefit Meta and he explicitly says it's not altruistic and that if it stops being useful he'll stop making things open.
I'm holding off on making the cynical conclusion about Threads' motivations.
