Preventing the embrace, extend, extinguish manoeuvre that WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Talk, even Apple Push Notifications did with XMPP is indeed a tough one.

The best solutions we have right now are:

* Ensure there's enough value in the wider network (e.g. available services, integrations, bridges, public chatrooms) that you'd be taking a massive step backwards not to federate.

* Try to build the protocol to be capable enough that vendors don't feel that they have to fork and close it in order to make it do what they want.

I think it's mainly the first one that will make the difference. If there hadn't been such great content out there on the public internet, we might still be on AOL & Compuserve today.