If Google can add stuff to the protocol that breaks other clients, that sounds like a bug with the protocol more than anything. Why was that even allowed

They could threaten to defederate from them.

Wait a minute…

did Google force them to do that, or did the open source devs just make a mistake?

What’s missing from the article is an actual explanation of how Google “killed” xmpp. Did google force the independent XMPP client developers to not implement cool features or something? Is meta going to buy up and shut down all the independent mastodon instances?

If the problem is that Facebook might develop a superior UX, maybe the fediverse should work on a better UX instead of screaming about some scary boogeyman and how the users are too dumb to know any better?