The risk is that Mozilla is in a position to add features and stability at a rate that smaller developers cannot possibly replicate. By doing so they risk becoming the defacto standard (embrace/extend). Then they get to dictate what the entire platform should or should not do. And you’re either on board or left in the dust. And if Mozilla decides that moderating a social network is too much of a liability, then we’re at extinguish.

To be frank, I’m so jaded by big players in this late stage capitalist world that I don’t trust anyone I might otherwise be fine with, like Mozilla.

I mean, we all probably said similar things about Google 20 years ago. It was a liked company that brought a lot of cool innovations to the web. Or even relatively more recently with Chrome. At launch it was liked, but now it’s weaponized.

To be fair, there are far, FAR worse players than Mozilla. I might even be so far as to be convinced they have benign interests at heart at the moment. But corruption always follows domination.

I just read the entire article and I don’t see why Mozilla really wants in on the Fediverse. It covers a lot of how it wants in, but not the driving motivation.

My best guess is they want to be the next Facebook/Twitter. They see a window and think it’s not something to miss.

Never forget: “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”, even if it’s from a relatively liked company like Mozilla.

Yeah, I think I remember reading that when paying cash the areas of the brain that register pain are activated in ways that paying with ‘convenient’ methods don’t.

Personally, I pay via credit card, and pay that off weekly—so I’m never caught off guard with how much I owe. Probably not the greatest thing in the world regarding a credit score, but it keeps me on top of my finances.

The rebate is only as good as my taxes… so it helps, but not enough to make it a financially wise decision at this time. Similar story with the state incentives.

Not sure if this counts, per se, but Solar Panels. Specifically, via a loan.

My electric bill is insane, thanks to the powers of capitalism and monopoly. So I figured installing solar panels would be a good investment. Sure it takes ten years to break even, but I’d rather be paying my way through that than paying my electric utility.

Well, the problem I ran into was that the interest on a loan would effectively negate any headway I was hoping to make per month.

I still plan on doing solar, but not before either interest rates at least quarter themselves or I save up enough to practically pay for it up front.

My local power company is a price gouger… but my state has mandated that we can select our source provider with zero penalties for switching… even between other sources.

It’s not a ton… since the ‘delivery’ fees are straight up highway robbery and not under the control of the outside provider… but it’s still something.

Currently doing research on solar and how much I need to save to afford the up front costs.

Okay, if that’s the case then that is a perfectly reasonable implementation.

I could be convinced that the search engine itself isn’t profiling me.

But if by virtue of loading the ad, the advertiser gains my IP address, MAC address, and a fingerprint based on things like my installed fonts, then that’s not really privacy in any meaningful sense.

Wait… how does that work?

If our searches fund trees, then our searches have to be making them money… and I’m not aware of many advertisers that respect privacy.

Okay, but realistically, how can we prevent this from happening in the future?

We’ve already, according to the article, dodged one bullet; but there’s no reason to expect that it’ll be the only one.

Also, due to the nature of the Fediverse being open source, there’s no way to prevent Facebook or other corporate monstrosities from building their own hooks.

I think we need to be prepared to preemptively defederate from the likes of Google, Reddit, Facebook or whatever. Not just this instance, but the greater Fediverse should have a United policy to reject association with those who would consume us and spit us out.