One obvious next step for Meta is to implementing proprietary ActivityPub extensions that address real problems in the current spec (just as Mastodon and other implementations do).

I was about to write a comment that points out that Fediverse clients are very diverse and the way they make use of ActivityPub is also diverse, but the article makes my point for me: Threads will have specific requirements.

Of course Threads is scary. It is bigger than the Fediverse by itself. You can always shut it out if you don't like it, just like the way Mastodon-derived platforms for alt-right social media got treated. That's how you solve such problems in the Fediverse.

What victory exactly?

Meta already sent NDAs to the biggest Mastodon instances before the release of Threads which that got 100M+ users onboarded alone. Even before releasing to the EU which eventually under the digital services act they have to interoperate with the (tiny) fediverse instances to show that they are not incentivising social media lock-in and users can migrate.

So what both the author fails to mention is that nothing was stopped, and eventually, ActivityPub is coming to Threads, like it or not and the so-called 'fedi-pact' did absolutely nothing to change that direction.

> ActivityPub advocates are optimistic that they'll be able to resist embrace-and-extend.

Money is power. Meta has billions and the Fediverse has no where near that amount. 'Principles' does not pay the bills.

This author and the article cannot be taken seriously at all. In fact, this post was quite hilarious with such premature claims of 'victory'.

Congratulations! We prevented a popular service from adopting an open standard! Mission accomplished! Open standards are the worst!