It was always open to people, never to corporations. There's a big difference between the two.

It was inevitable that there would be corporate interest especially as we pose an alternative and potential threat to their market share but never that people on the Fediverse, many of whom came here to escape the spam, hate, and corporate control of places like Facebook would embrace this. Nobody is shocked by this.

The admins of the Mastodon instance I've been on, Kolektiva, already announced they won't be federating with "Threads" as it was Zuckerberg's censorship that lead them to create their instance as an alternative. Many others are doing the same as they did when Trump created his instance that ended up in a closed loop. Those type of controls built into most parts of the Fediverse are certainly a strength. It's not simply about living in "bliss" but about protecting what's been built largely by volunteers over years. Data gathering would definitely be a threat if Meta was allowed in.

The history of corporate involvement in open-sourced space has been antagonistic and threatening. People have reason not to trust Meta and many have joined here long ago to get away from it so these these are valid concerns being articulated by much of the Fediverse and it'll be interesting to see what comes next to say the least.