Let’s say Lemmy acquires the critical mass of users, continues to gain in popularity. Eventually someone will offer a large sum of money, the platform grows, new owners look towards an IPO, the goals shift, yadayada… How is different this time?
Let’s say Lemmy acquires the critical mass of users, continues to gain in popularity. Eventually someone will offer a large sum of money, the platform grows, new owners look towards an IPO, the goals shift, yadayada… How is different this time?
It could happen if there was a very popular instance that didn’t federate with others.
An instance that gained its popularity starting off not federate with others? Not possible right? How the hell do you attract another instance’s users if you don’t federate?
An instance that start off federating but ended up breaking off? How is it supposed to retain its users from other instances?
Lemmygrad is blocked from federating with most other instances but still is a pretty large instance. Though that instance in particular is not very likely to look towards IPO.
Holy shit I am laughing so hard.
“Comrades! It’s been fun but we’ve decided we like money now, so we sold you all like serfs to a megacorporation. Now do as they say. Bye!”
If an instance become overwhelmingly popular it could theoretically decide that users from other instances aren’t important and leave the federation. They would lose the users from elsewhere, but leave them free to fork the code and do their own thing. I’m not sure how this works with the licensing, but they were determined I’m sure they could go down the same path as Reddit.