This kills Lemmy, I guess? It’s not practical for the second and third largest instances to defederate - it just creates two separate networks depending on which side people pick.
It was nice while it lasted, but I can’t see Lemmy surviving this.
I see it this way: federation is unironically a feature, not a bug. What will the platform look like in 5 years? Maybe none of the currently “big” instances will exist anymore, but others will have taken their place. Maybe a rotation of popular instances will be normal (probably not), I don’t know. I can always make a new account and move to another instance - I find that beautiful.
I think if you retain the expectation of a monolithic all-in-one network like Reddit is, the Fediverse might not be for you - but for others, it will be right! Federation won’t kill Lemmy, it may attract a certain demographic for sure, but again, I see the merit in that.
