Even if official support isn’t possible past a certain point (Google and Samsung are pushing 7+ years, fwiw), all phones need to have a bootloader unlock mechanism for unofficial support past that point. LineageOS or mobile Linux with some broken functionality is still better than nothing.

I’m okay with Threads federating because there are a some people I know who won’t use Mastodon but will use Threads, and I would like to talk to them without downloading Threads. That’s probably true for most of the people supporting it, or they just think it should be up to individuals instead of the admin making unilateral decisions about who you’re allowed to talk with.

Threads joining would also introduce a far wider group of people to Fedi that isn’t just “nerds who like Linux and/or programming”, which is the bulk of people using Mastodon (and Lemmy, for that matter) right now. I’m not really concerned about EEE because there will always be a huge chunk of people using the FOSS platforms.

If I am on Mastodon, there is nothing that Threads can collect from me that they can not get already. My posts are public, Meta or anyone else doesn’t need permission to look at them.

The only risk is if I am sending direct messages to someone on Threads from Mastodon, then obviously Meta has a copy. ActivityPub is not E2E encrypted, you shouldn’t be using it for private communication at all, the threat model is the same between Threads and any other Mastodon server.

Public Mastodon posts are already indexed by search engines.

How about users make decisions for themselves and block Threads if they want?