Instagram was the last one I expected to join the fediverse. They actually actively blocked 3rd party clients before and even shut them down.
Fediverse
A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.
Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".
Getting started on Fediverse;
- What is the fediverse?
- Fediverse Platforms
- How to run your own community
My guess is that meta sees another one of their social media sites go down the drain and this time they want to try something to stop it.
My guess is that they want to use the already established userbase of Mastodon as a starting point. There's going to be more content from the start and also more users. If they would make a new app with no users they would need to start from scratch which is more risky.
I feel like for a venture capitalist it's better to start an app from scratch than have fediverse users connected to it xD
I don't see this as a good thing. I see it as a logical step after the success of the fediverse. But I am afraid of how it will develop, with more commercial participants in fedi.