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They can't fuck off the fediverse, only their own instances. That is the advantage of decentralized networks.
Eh, they could still do the scummy shit Apple and Google were doing to each other with SMS. Start encoding "extra features" in the standard messages and pushing that garbage out to the rest of the network. Or hit it with a 51% attack and scramble everything that can't defederate fast enough. Still problematic.
I think that 51% of the fediverese even for Google is too complicated, even if he gets such a large instance, it's in the fediverse only one more and it can easy be blocked and excludet by any other instance (several thousend), as it also ocurres with some Nazi instances (Gab and others). Although some instances are small,chow does Google intend to control the instance that a guy has created for him and his friends on his own server? it is in the nature of this decentralized system, self-hosted in private servers, that it cannot be controlled as a whole by a single entity, as is done in traditional monolithic social networks, such as Reddit, X, Meta, . ....it's like trying to eat a broth with a fork- There are already many instances created by corporations, companies, official and gov sites, NASA, ESA, informations media and journalists in the fediverse, coming from all over the world and all hosted on their own servers. It only stands to reason that they're going to tell Google to hell if it try to take control of them. Google has a lot of servers, but can only control these, but not others.
I'm not betting on the 51%, but it's still on the table. I'm more convinced they'll start throwing garbage over the protocol and uninformed users will migrate to instances that support that garbage because of peer pressure, features, or just wanting to get rid of the encoded messages. It'll turn into the green chat bubble argument with some people feeling their instance is superior in the way it deals with it.
They can fuck off, but not so easily fuck up the fediverse!