There's going to be a massive land grab of all these big instances. There will be lots of merging and acquiring too.

My advice is that you all become *very* aware of who owns your instance and why.

Get to know your admins—make sure their values align with your own.

If you don't want to put your social media life in the hands of strangers, then self-host your own instance.

What is the perceived revenue stream that justifies such an investment?

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mask-network-acquires-pawoonet-one-of-the-largest-mastodon-instances-301707919.html

@bullivant This is a land grab, pure and simple.

@bullivant They may try to copy what Truth Social is doing & insert ads within people’s timelines.

Even though there are corporate-owned instances, it is particularly jarring that a corporate overlord assimilates instances now.

But I think we will see more of this for one reason: Twitter is dying, so companies are trying to “buy the next Twitter” instead of building one.

And they'd be mad not to build on the Fediverse. The hardest part about building any social network is validating the network effect. ActivityPub solves that problem.

@bullivant I agree. We might see corporations target #Pixelfed instances next.

Also, #Mastodon admins are going to receive lucrative offers soon, & some might sell if they are unable to pay operational costs for their servers.

It will become critical for members to support their local servers.