Why? I would love for the general public to be able to connect to Fediverse. I don't love Meta per se, but let be real here, the majority of people are not gonna sign up for random instances that run by someone they don' know, to interact with a very small and niche subset of people, with a risk of it being shut down by that said person due to whatever personal circumstances they may have. It's the biggest obstacles when convincing people to switch to Mastodon.

If this rumor is real and Threads takes off, you can still stay in whichever instance that you like, but now be able to get updates from the artist, the experts, educators, politicians, the influencers that would not have joined the Fediverse otherwise. And more importantly, more people now can get updates from you. Reach might not be something you personally appreciate but it's very important for content creators.

This behavior is pathetic. As long as Meta is open to federation to other instances, this can only be a good thing for the entire ecosystem.

If my current mastodon instance blocks Meta, I will move to a different instance which federates with them. The entire point of federation in my eyes is that it lets me talk to as many people as possible.

I have been a rather happy user the last few months but the last couple of weeks it's turned pretty narsty; downloaded my data and turned off my main instance account, and I'm waiting for the schism to happen before I go back in.

I have zero issue with Meta using ActivityPub, cause whatever they try, it makes them at least somewhat permeable in theory. I do have zero intention of interacting with them on any level though.