💀
@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/
as for which is more reasonable, i think alynx makes a good point about the app store, so i'm inclined to believe it, however consider this theory: they joined the fediverse to siphon new users. they left because a mistake in the code caused them to defederate and they couldn't be bothered to fix it since their users didn't like the content.
@fluffy @colonelj
>they joined the fediverse to siphon new users.
Doubt it. If I remember correctly, when they joined they had more accounts than most, if not all of fedi at that time. There is of course the problem of how many of those accounts were actually in use, but considering how often people have multiple accounts on fedi too, I think they kinda cancel each other out.
@fluffy @colonelj
They rode on them being big because they were desperate to be seen with respect and admiration. Torba's ego was definitely hit like a ton of bricks when fedi was so openly mocking him to his face.
He was literally trying to subvert the fediverse and claim people should follow his way, because "look at how many people we have, so you should be in awe of us, and follow our lead". It was playing politics to grab power and control over fedi.
Their growth base has always and will always be Twitter/Facebook refugees. Don't know if they were really hoping to gather that much more from fedi. Again, considering the numbers, targeting fedi wouldn't have lead to a much bigger growth. Their main focus should always be Twitter & Facebook.
if there was some sort of fireside chat or press interview where he said this stuff, that would be different, but you are making guesses from tweets. i don't think it is respectful to other people to speak with conviction about things that are speculative.
this theory explains why they rode so hard on them being big when they joined, they have strong branding and a bigger budget so ordinarily you'd expect to grow.
honestly social media site trying new things to get new users is pretty reasonable, and it's likely that having an app for free sealed the deal. IMHO