I think it’s pretty safe to say that the majority of us are here to avoid another corporate takeover of our preferred platforms. It would seem to me to be a tad irresponsible to allow Facebook into our space with open arms, allowing them to hoover up our data. I would love to keep using Lemmy.world, but will happily change instances if need be, and I feel many share that sentiment.
It’s interesting, because wanting to grow to supersede the corporations can become just like the corporations wanting to grow for profit. The ends don’t justify the means here.
The idea would be that as people here and see about it more, more people would join, but there’s a lot of assumptions baked into that, including that these people are actually people you want on the platform. Like you mention at the end, racists are going to find a “corporate, government free” space to be their own paradise. And we can’t let that happen.
I wonder if this would be possible: content from Facebook is not shown on Lemmy, but content from Lemmy can be shown on Facebook. Facebook users can join Lemmy, but there’s an application process for them so we can vet them.
I’m fine with however things end up, but I do want us to keep in mind that we risk becoming too insular and developing a groupthink. I don’t think it would be a danger to society like conservative ones tend to become, but I don’t want to think Jill Stein has huge support because Lemmy castigates anyone else, for instance.
I don’t think we’re in that position right now, but it’s one to be wary of.