Mozilla has announced it will be shutting down its experiment with the open social web, also known as the fediverse. The company’s server, Mozilla. social, which connected users to the Mastodon social network, will cease operations on December 17.
Prior to the shutdown, users will have the option to download their data or migrate their accounts to another Mastodon instance if they choose. This flexibility is a key feature of the fediverse, allowing users to move between servers without losing their content and followers.
Mozilla’s decision comes after the company signaled it would be refocusing its efforts on Firefox and AI earlier this year. The company had initially been enthusiastic about the potential of the fediverse, but under new leadership, Mozilla opted for a more “modest approach” that allowed it to participate with greater agility.
The Mozilla. social instance was relatively small, with only 270 active users at the time of the announcement. In contrast, the most popular Mastodon instance, Mastodon. social, has over 247,500 monthly active users.
Mozilla’s exit from the fediverse is seen as a significant development in the open social web space. However, another startup, Mammoth, which makes a third-party Mastodon app, has announced it will be migrating its instance to Mastohost, a hosting provider for Mastodon servers.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/17/mozilla-exits-the-fediverse-and-will-shutter-its-mastodon-server-in-december/