I think it’s more realistic than people think. The Digital Markets Act in the EU is likely why Threads is ActivityPub, and Reddit is (potentially) affected by it too: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-markets-act-ensuring-fair-and-open-digital-markets_en

Examples of the “do’s” - Gatekeeper platforms will have to:

• allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services in certain specific situations
• allow their business users to access the data that they generate in their use of the gatekeeper’s platform
• provide companies advertising on their platform with the tools and information necessary for advertisers and publishers to carry out their own independent verification of their advertisements hosted by the gatekeeper
• allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform

Let me quickly quote selected sections of the act itself:

The lack of interoperability allows gatekeepers that provide number-independent interpersonal communications services to benefit from strong network effects, which contributes to the weakening of contestability. Furthermore, regardless of whether end users ‘multi-home’, gatekeepers often provide number-independent interpersonal communications services as part of their platform ecosystem, and this further exacerbates entry barriers for alternative providers of such services and increases costs for end users to switch. Without prejudice to Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council (14) and, in particular, the conditions and procedures laid down in Article 61 thereof, gatekeepers should therefore ensure, free of charge and upon request, interoperability with certain basic functionalities of their number-independent interpersonal communications services that they provide to their own end users, to third-party providers of such services.

Gatekeepers should ensure interoperability for third-party providers of number-independent interpersonal communications services that offer or intend to offer their number-independent interpersonal communications services to end users and business users in the Union. To facilitate the practical implementation of such interoperability, the gatekeeper concerned should be required to publish a reference offer laying down the technical details and general terms and conditions of interoperability with its number-independent interpersonal communications services. It should be possible for the Commission, if applicable, to consult the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, in order to determine whether the technical details and the general terms and conditions published in the reference offer that the gatekeeper intends to implement or has implemented ensures compliance with this obligation.

Simply:

• You need to allow third-party apps free of charge

• You must publish your API publicly

Failure to comply causes:

• Initial fine of up to 10% of the company’s total worldwide annual turnover (or up to 20% in the event of repeated infringements)

• Daily fine of up to 5% of the average daily turnover

• Systemic infringements can cause the EU to break up the company entirely

The law has teeth. It could be I’m misunderstanding some nuances of the text, but this part seems pretty cut and dry from my perspective (I am not a legal expert):

gatekeepers should therefore ensure, free of charge and upon request, interoperability with certain basic functionalities of their number-independent interpersonal communications services that they provide to their own end users, to third-party providers of such services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_communication

Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people.

If deemed an internet gatekeeper, Reddit would need to allow interoperability free of charge with all of their “interpersonal communications services” (e.g. Reddit + chat + modmail + etc.) on any kind of third-party app that wants to support it. (Which makes recent decisions even more baffling.)

From a cynical perspective, Reddit switching to ActivityPub would also work to remove a barrier between Reddit and Lemmy. If Reddit thinks they can out-compete Lemmy from a UX perspective, reversing course and going more open by embracing ActivityPub would bring traffic back to where they can monetize it. If Reddit’s UX is better, people will be more likely to engage on Reddit than Lemmy, and thus Reddit wouldn’t lose people.

Of course, there are 2 major issues with this:

1. Reddit is terrible at UX and is actively getting worse

2. Spez is a fuckwad who wants to be Elon without realizing he and Elon are about to be royally fucked by the EU next year when this starts to really take effect

That’s sort of where I was going I guess. Now Meta are involved it’s a buzzword.