Posting this as a text post so that nobody has to go to Gab, but the source is here if you really want to. Full post copied below:

An update on "New Gab" and what to expect:

Progress on our new codebase is going well. For those who don't know, our plan is to fork existing open source software, Mastodon, which is based on the ActivityPub social networking protocol.

What does this mean in layman's terms?

• Gab will become an open source project, meaning developers from around the world can contribute the project and help us build.
• Gab will get several new features and PRO benefits, such as video uploading.
• You'll be able to log into and use dozens of existing mobile apps that exist on both App Stores with your Gab account and use Gab through these apps.
• We will be porting over all of your Gab posts, followers, etc to this new codebase.
• Gab will be getting a fresh paint job and be much more "user friendly." (See a mockup below, which isn't final.) Don't worry, it won't look anything like Mastodon (for those of you who know it is,) it will look like Gab.

What does the timeline look like for this going live?

At the moment we are working on building in Gab features that this open source social networking protocol does not currently have. Things like Gab Groups and editing. We are also finalizing a fresh redesign of the Gab interface. Once these two things are done, we will start porting over all existing Gab data. During this time we will invite Gabbers to beta test New Gab and give us feedback. Once Gabbers give us the go ahead we will finalize the transition and push it to Gab.com. All of these steps will occur over the next few weeks.

Why are you doing this?

• Moving Gab to open source brings transparency and additional help from developers in our community from around the world.
• Moving to the ActivityPub protocol as our base allows us to get into mobile App Stores without even having to submit and get approval of our own apps, whether Apple and Google like it or not.
• Ultimately we want to make Gab more user friendly, perform better, and be a product you all love. This will accomplish all of those things.

We are excited to share this with you and will have more information soon.

Thank you

This is a pretty interesting move by Gab. They had been kicked out of app stores, and like the post mentions, this will allow them to just piggyback on existing apps that work with Mastodon instead of needing their own. I saw at least one app dev say that they'd specifically block it from being used on Gab, but they probably won't all do that, and I'm sure they'll probably end up with some options.

People in the fediverse don't seem very happy about this overall, but it's probably also not a big deal. The main dev of Mastodon posted:

So Gab has decided that their own code that they spent $5M of investor money developing is so unsalvageably bad that they're going to use Mastodon's code instead, with the added bonus of leeching off of our apps (with Gab apps being banned from app stores)

This is an early warning to fellow admins to be vigilant and domain-block them on sight, when/if they appear (unconfirmed whether they intend to federate), and to app devs to consider if blocking Gab's domains from their app is necessary.

Remember that Gab is a sinking ship and they're basically grabbing onto Mastodon like a parasite in a desperate attempt to get attention from the "drama" of doing so.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/gab-is-in-full-meltdown-and-founder-andrew-torba-blames-the-deep-state

Torba has no self-awareness to see how pathetic it looks that his master race ass is incompetent at making a working website so he has to resort to using software made by a Jew instead.

App devs will block their domains, server admins will block their domains, and that'll be the end of that.

So, in a nutshell, the writing quality and character development declined a lot in the last season ... except I mostly didn't notice (or mind), until I started reading online about how much - and why - everyone else hated the last season.

I got as far as S08 Ep03 (the White Walker battle) without reading any online commentary, critiques, etc. On my own, I did feel some characters' activities/behaviors were a bit 'off', but I still loved the episode overall (except literally too dark, hard to see some scenes).

Then a friend commented on some disappointing thing in the episode, and how 'everyone' was bitching about it. I started reading online ... and that's when I started seeing the flaws in the last season.

Granted, even if I had stayed offline, just watched it myself, there probably still would have been things that pissed me off ... Euron's magical dragon ambush, the whole Missandei capture/murder thing, and Dany embracing the Dark Side. I can't imagine I would have overlooked those.

But, by reading everyone else's gripes online, watching bitter youtube reviews, etc., the last 3 episodes sucked a lot more for me, because I saw all the flaws, many of which I would have missed.

So, to sum up, I blame all y'all for ruining GoT for me.

Thoughts?

Curious how you guys feel about this as users, uploaders etc? Its an interesting question because this was generally viewed as a good move by instagram, would it be the same with Youtube.

Also, from what I understand a lot of drama on Youtube has been elevated because of public seeing the subs go up/down, maybe this would change how we analyse drama. I dont say this in the sense of someone who enjoys drama, but some of these things reflect social trends/situations.

Edit: I just want to add for clarification; Instagram is currently beta testing a feature where only you the poster can view how many likes and comments you get, the public cannot. The Youtube version would be hiding views/likes/subs from the audience, but not the content creator.