If they thought the fediverse was insignificant they wouldn’t even bother. Them spending publicly visible time and energy on it means there’s something for them to gain.

But yeah, I’m not entirely sure what yet. Like you said, reading data is freely available, so it’s not just that.

We’re pretty much agreeing here. I don’t think them federating out makes much of a difference. They get the data from the reverse for free. They only have to scoop, and it’s worth almost noting individually.

But that’s their current game. Has been for a long time. Serving one ad is a tiny thing. But they add up.

However, them wanting to federate indicates they see the fediverse as something worth noting and paying attention to, possibly even joining. That’s not nothing.

They either think:

1. The fediverse will grow with or without them, and without them it’s a potential threat, due to loss of control
2. The fediverse has potential that they want to water and help grow so they can prune it and shape it to become something valuable to them
3. They can “try genuinely” to join the fediverse, and elicit a response that maims it

That response can come in many forms.

If they provoke a backlash of defederation (done), that causes devision and argument. They win by shattering the potential threat before it can grow.

If they are allowed to join and become a large voice and eventually be like gmail to email, big enough to have control and provide the filtering people are already (quietly, carefully) asking for. All they need to do is to offer “spam filters” and a “personal feed” and we have Facebook 2.0 and they don’t even have to foot most of the server bills.

I’m not sure how to win this, but there’s a lot of ways to lose it.

The Wig punched himself through a couple of African backwaters and felt like a shark cruising a swimming pool thick with caviar. Not that any one of those tasty tiny eggs amounted to much, but you could just open wide and scoop, and it was easy and filling and it added up. The Wig worked the Africans for a week, incidentally bringing about the collapse of at least three governments and causing untold human suffering. At the end of his week, fat with the cream of several million laughably tiny bank accounts, he retired. As he was going out, the locusts were coming in; other people had gotten the African idea.

• Count Zero - William Gibson

They just need the data. It’s available, all they need to do is open wide and scoop.