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@colonelj
They probably defederated because they no longer had anything to gain. They federated because they needed a phone app. Once the bigger phone apps domain blocked gab, that was over. All gab was left was wasting resources on federating with just a couple of instances that weren't even that friendly with gab.
@fluffy @colonelj
I think it was even stated by the likes of Torba at some point. They had the issue that their own app was banned from iPhone/Android app stores, and they struggled like that for a while. And when they federated, they were advertising like crazy that you could use any fedi app to log into gab.
@fluffy @colonelj
The lack of an easy accessible app has been the biggest issue they had for a while. Boomers would have problems using gab from their phones, and constantly requested an official gab app. And since they got banned from the official stores, they struggled to teach boomers to sideload apps. So federating was a "solution" for them.
At least my memory is still pretty good.
https://wedistribute.org/2019/05/gab-is-forking-mastodon-and-joining-the-fediverse/
@fluffy @colonelj
They hadn't made their move yet. It was still on planning stages from what I can remember when the tweet was made.
>as if it was some deliberate decision
The deliberate decision is in not caring anymore that they're not compatible with everything else. If apps aren't useful anyway, why bother fixing it.
secondly, about leaving, recall that their method of "leaving" is they made a change to the code which broke federation, as far as i am aware accidentally due to lack of technical skill, and then never fixed it... so i think it is a mistake to frame it as if it was some deliberate decision on their part.
I don't find this to be a smoking gun at all. Sure it is reasonable enough, but i am unconvinced.