the CEO of Flickr, who is now active here at @d0n, is wondering if #Flickr should implement #ActivityPub and become part of the #fediverse!
https://twitter.com/donmacaskill/status/1594945727255699457 #FediNews
Flickr CEO Don MacAskill (@d0n) is currently running a poll to decide whether to add #ActivityPub to 
Flickr to join the #fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Peertube, etc.)
Make your voice heard:
https://sfba.social/@d0n/109422647995225732
Poll on Twitter too:
https://twitter.com/DonMacAskill/status/1597256480519966720
Remember this has good and bad repercussions whether you use Flickr or not, it would be the first time an old giant joins us but also would bring many many new issues we would have to face together. Please boost for reach!
@liaizon @d0n @cwebber @evan @Gargron @halcy @hypolite @mike
My personal opinion is simple: the more services with preexisting user base adopt ActivityPub, the better for the humanity. If someone doesn't want to federate with them, they'll be able to block that federation anyway. There are no major downsides really.
@grishka @liaizon @d0n @cwebber @evan @Gargron @halcy @hypolite @mike I still think the Context Collapse angle (probably at least one or two other angles) on this is heavily under-theorized, and certainly under-tooled-for (technological capabilities tools, and social norms tools) as far as the ActivityPub and the Fediverse we have now.
(I'm... pretty sure that's one of the angles explicitly being considered in @cwebber 's current work? I think.)
Like it's not that simple that there are NO downsides. We should go into this expecting and searching for a lot of recurring social friction, and not close our eyes when walking into this.
@liaizon i actually don’t know how I feel about those but I guess vaguely; positive? Mostly because it‘s starting to be quite a few companies. You‘d think if there’s a lot, an embrace extend extinguish type scenario is harder
but also, I‘ve not really any experience with large scale systems, I‘m not a masto or activitypub core dev, and working at MS doesn’t immediately make you an EEE expert either, so that’s pretty much just really just „personal feeling“. Not sure if we‘d limit/suspend them. Would talk it through with coadmin probably, likely ask users for input 
Good lord @liaizon@social.wake.st did you just necro a 3 year old topic 
@julian what is time anyway
We’re rabidly customer centric, so very interested in their voices, but we still make the decisions (and must live with the results).
@liaizon would love to hear people's take on the pros/cons of this.
What I can think of (and some based on what I've seen in other heated threads).
CONS:
* Potential corporate or for-profit organisations dominating, or filling, the fediverse.
* Once the above are involved, they will also get involve in the future of the fediverse.
Like moving the protocol in a direction people doesn't want, which will benefit them in the long run, and not the fediverse and its citizens.
Or, introducing unofficial stuff here and there, and since they're the largest, it's either everyone else implements their unofficial additions, or gets left behind (and possibly ordinary users encouraging everyone to move to a "better" platform).
* Then later, after all is said and done, said large services disconnects from the fediverse (Facebook did this, they connected to the XMPP network, then years later disconnected from it, citing this and that about XMPP). Or, creates their own fediverse network.
Since a lot of ordinary users are used to the way things are, ordinary users left behind will more likely move too.
PROS:
* It will increase the content available in the #Fediverse.
The fediverse has been around since 2008, it was called "identiverse" until 2010-2012 when the former as first coined. Yet, it took an Elon to start a mass migration.
One of the usual reason I hear from my own network (ie family, friends, colleagues, and so on), is content (the other is network).
Content that matters to them are not in the fediverse. Like official accounts of this and that. And personalities they want to get updates from.
* People, who otherwise wouldn't create a fediverse account, will now be available in the network.
This is good. As mentioned previously, people's "network" is one other reason I personally often hear as a reason. If their family, friends, colleagues, and so on, are suddenly available in the fediverse, it eliminates that reason why they don't care about it at all.
* Awareness.
Mass media will start to talk about the Fediverse. Their respective tech sites, tech TV/cable programs, won't be able to ignore and dismiss the fediverse anymore.
People who are against the fediverse, for whatever reason, will have a fediverse account simply because they are using one of these existing services.
---
Just to be clear, the above pros and cons were only what I think and what I've observed in other heated discussions. It does not represent my stand.
My stand is this: The fediverse is a web standard, an open protocol. Anyone can join the fediverse. There is no central authority, or any 'body' governing it, and I believe that's by design.
Existing fediverse instances are already blocking other servers for a hundred reasons, from the no-reason-just-because-I-feel-it, to a very justified reason (like two-thirds of the instance is about hate). As others have already said, if they don't want existing corporate-run / for-profit services in the fediverse, they can just block them. And their members who are fine with it can either move or create another account; and vice versa. (Which I think is the spirit of fediverse, choice and freedom.)
^_^
@youronlyone @liaizon thanks so much for taking the time to write this. It provides good food for thought. As someone who hasn't used social media for a long time until finding the fediverse, I'm wary of celebrities and corporations jumping in and (for me) poisoning the waters. That said, I have some faith that the protocol will allow me the power to sort out those issues myself, as you point out, and the benefits are significant. So, I'll vote yes.
Bed @liaizon @d0n@sfba.social Course a capitalist would be on an instance we suspended for homophobia.
@liaizon what do you think? Flickr is a centralized platform, so it would just add one huge instance to the fediverse. On the other hand, would they be able to spam us fedizens here with their ads? In that case many servers would defederate, I think, and so I wonder what's in there for them?
@maikek I think its inevitable that some big centralized corporate environment will join us so we might as well get it out of the way with a service like flickr and make the necessary changes to deal with what happens when youtube or facebook try to join us.
They can... It wouldn't change much seeing as the rules of conduct would still apply and they would likely be silenced (blocked) by most servers if they run ads. It's not really up for debate as to if they can use the scripts and activity pub seeing as it's all foss, anyone can use it and or modify the scripts.
@maikek
@thingamajig @maikek Don is bringing it up for debate and asking our opinions about it right now. Some people are really in favor and some people will try to push them away. I think it is very important to think through the long term effects of what it will mean. The AP spec is also still a very moving target. It hasn't really changed since its first release but mastodon and pleroma and lemmy and the rest have added things specific to themselves that would either get supported not by Flickr 
@thingamajig @maikek and if flickr didn't support the additions of mastodon to the spec then they wouldn't really support mastodon. but if they Do support all the specifics to mastodon then that reinforces mastodons position as the "way" AP should be done. This is all stuff we need to figure out regardless but it is a bit scary to do this right now. There are a lot of things we haven't figured out yet ourselves and adding flickr means adding potentially 60 million active users
@thingamajig @maikek we are currently at around 2 million active users all across the fediverse, so it could completely change the dynamics around here...