In cases like this, creating artificial scarcity is very important. Without scarcity, no producer would finance new movies because there’s no way to make back their initial investment. So just like with patents, we create artificial scarcity by giving the people who made the movie exclusive rights to decide who can watch it.
Even though scarcity isn’t enforced upon us like with most goods, it’s in literally everyone’s best interest to create (and enforce) that scarcity.
I don’t see why we can’t just stay on the fediverse, enjoy threads as long as meta wants to play ball, and then wave goodbye when they decide they don’t want to federate anymore. Nobody’s forcing anyone to move from the fediverse to meta, and I think the current demographic here is unlikely to volunteer for another walled garden experience.
Worst case scenario is we end up right back where we are now- a niche community prioritizing independence and decentralization.