And make no mistake, either the fediverse stays so tiny companies ignore it other than what Meta is doing now (to pre-empty EU legislation so they can point at supporting open interoperable formats), or we have to accept commercial enterprises will flood the fedi-space anyways if it takes off.

I agree, the entrance of large corporations into the fediverse is nearly inevitable and I am ok with that. What matters is how and when they do it and how that changes the politics, identity and community of the fediverse. WE have the cards because as you say corporate social networks that basically have monopolies are going to eventually be forced by regulation (unless we are on even shittier timeline than I thought) to join the fediverse or do something similar.

Think about the difference though between welcoming in meta to the fediverse like they are some cool popular kid that decided to join our lame party and now everyone wants to come to the party vs rejecting meta because we know their offer isn’t genuine and making them come back later to the fediverse in a much more precarious situation where they HAVE to work something out with us or they face geometrically growing legal and populist hostility that threatens the existence of their company?

Which situation is more likely to result in a relationship more advantageous to normal people and communities on the fediverse? Which one puts more power in the hands of small communities and regular people on the fediverse? Which one is less likely to result in meta hijacking the public’s perception of the fediverse and subverting the reasons that the original denizens of the fediverse came here for?