Can’t a corporation just enter the space whenever they want to? Can’t they start or even buy out larger instances? Even if Lemmy does take off, wouldn’t this inevitably happen anyway if the space gets popular enough?

  • jcg@halubilo.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    Sure they can. But…

    1. How can they compete in a space where people are already there providing a service without trying to extract value from them?
    2. Why would one of these larger instances sell out when their userbase can sustain them and selling out is antithetical to the reason they started the instance in the first place?
    3. I and many people like me would be fine in our own instances. We’d just defederate. If, say, lemmy.world sold out those guys would just have to switch instances. It’s a pain, yes, but it’s possible.
    • fidodo@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 year ago
      1. By providing better services and features. Corporations are capable of providing good pro user services when they’re forced to through competition, but what they’ll do is do that until they build a big enough user base then splinter off and start pulling the same shit again. It’s the whole thing behind embrace-extend-extinguish.
      2. Money. Lots of money. If money doesn’t work they’ll try to compete on point 1.
      3. Agree. Most people will be too lazy and unprincipled to care, but I’m fine with a smaller higher quality community and Lemmy makes that possible. If corporations get a foothold on the platform it’ll still be impossible for them to get a 100% monopoly like they can on their own proprietary centralized platforms.