Darnell (Seize The Day)

After months of speculation, Instagram has finally released Threads to the world (well, everywhere except nations within the European Union).

With Threads on track to surpass a 100 million users, some may wonder why Meta even bothers embracing the Fediverse when Threads will ultimately dominate the decentralized social network as soon as they enter the arena.

Meta might be many things (some good, some bad), but ultimately they are a business, & like all businesses, they will not waste financial resources if they do not see a future profit in an endeavor. So here are four business reasons why Meta is embracing the Fediverse.

Verification Is Currency

Remember Meta Verification‽ There is a demand for a real world verification system on digital platforms nowadays, & before Elon Musk screwed that up the manual blue checkmark system was almost perfect.

Millions (if not billions) of people who are not celebrities desire to be verified online, & Meta realized that by offering real world verification to the masses (along with some extra security to justify the price), they could generate billions of dollars on a “side business.”

By establishing itself as the gold standard for online verification, Meta can use Threads to provide online verification to Fediverse accounts, which the non-geek masses will use as method to identify legit businesses & individuals across the Fediverse.

Note: It would not be surprising if Meta verification is legally certified as legit in front of the courts in the not so distant future.

To Buy Or Not To Buy Is The Question

After Instagram uses Threads to establish itself as the de facto dignitary of digital verification to the masses, we will probably begin to see Meta encourage creators to open shops in order to sell physical goods.

Meta already allows creators to sell goods, on Instagram, but if Meta can convince hundreds of millions (if not billions) to trust creators who are Meta verified over non-Meta verified accounts, they can effectively influence multiple markets like Amazon without having to deal with the overhead of hosting goods & products.

With online fraud on the rise, people will demand safe spaces to spend their hard earned currency, & it would not be surprising if Meta tries to establish itself as a trusted payment processor in the near future.

Expanding The Fediverse, Expand Your Clientele

The Fediverse in its current state is far too small for Facebook to make a decent profit off of the community. Threads alone will dwarf the Fediverse in the same way Jupiter dwarfs the planets in our solar system.

But by Threads embracing ActivityPub, they will encourage hundreds of millions (if not billions) to also enter the Fediverse using thousands (or tens of thousands) of various platforms.

It would also not be surprising to see Threads offer managed premium hosting options (basically “Threads under your own domain”) to clients in the future, as well as offer the proprietary software to numerous hosting companies for a small fee.

Update: corrected spelling in header. Thanks for letting me know about this @Homebrewandhacking@mastodon.ie!

What About Advertising‽

Meta is an ad company, & they will probably integrate advertising within Threads. However, if they implemented it within the news feed like they do with Instagram & Facebook, there would be immediate backlash.

Meta will get around this by partnering with Fediverse users themselves to allow the ads to be either automatically promoted (perhaps via API access) or manually promoted from established accounts. Some Verified celebrities & individuals will create promotional posts advertising products or services within their feed to their followers.

Meta will probably expand this offer to creators on other platforms, with the only requirements being they have to be apart of the Meta verified program (even if they do not use Threads themselves).

Conclusion

There are also numerous of benefits of Threads embracing the Fediverse, including:

• Regulatory: harder to accuse Meta of being a monopoly
• Legal: as @atomicpoet@atomicpoet.org mentioned, Meta can gain access to news content without paying for it
• Meta can communicate with potential clients behind national bans from hostile nations (many of them use VPNs).

Currently Meta reaches billions of people using their centralized social networks. But in order to reach the rest of humanity, Meta needs a proven, trustworthy & reliable tool that they do not control (for obvious reasons), hence the reason why they probably chose ActivityPub over other contenders.

👨🏾‍💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day

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