This from BlueSky's @pfrazee.com remains one of my favorite posts on BlueSky.

Caffe Neko

@tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy 100%. I'm on both platforms for different reasons - I appreciate them both differently. I do not see them in competition.

Stefan Bohacek

@tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy

"This is not a zero sum game "

Really? Yes, we have a bridge between the fediverse and Bluesky, but that's just a one-person hobby side project, feels a bit too optimistic to rely on it long-term.

I really wish Bluesky would spend at least a portion of their millions of dollars in investments integrating this bridge natively, giving us something more stable that we can rely on.

Stefan Bohacek

@tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy Right now it just feels like a competition with too many picking Bluesky.

And I get why, and mostly don't really blame them!

But it definitely does not feel like we're one big community together.

JohnW

@tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy

I've been looking into the bridge. My friends on FB are flocking away from X and signing up to Blue Sky (and posting their handles) so it would be great to get in touch with them from here.

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I think that the people choosing bluesky have a good reason. There's much less friction and it tries to lull you into the notion that "old twitter" had a viable mode of existence. I highly doubt most of the people going there care about or even think much about it being theoretically distributable.

My (probably naïve) take is that it either manages to deliver on real practical distributability (and along the way that would mean real ability to interop with activitypub even if only third party intermediary systems) or it doesn't and investor interests overpower any idealism in the people making it. In case capital wins we basically get a redo of what's currently happening with twitter. It will be a very long process, but that makes sense cause it's not a technical, but a social one and those are very rarely fast.

Stefan Bohacek

@kunev @tchambers @bsky.brid.gy @pfrazee.com I think you nailed it.

But Bluesky does have a huge short-term advantage in the form of VC funding, and only really being just one big platform.

Much harder to get all of the fediverse platforms aligned on how to approach building new features that work everywhere, with far less funding.

But we're getting there, I really believe it!

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] agreeing on extensions to the standard is quite hard and large players in the space (mastodon) will have a louder and heavier voice, that's inevitable. It is however how most socially distributed things work. Democracy is hard and requires an understanding and readiness to embrace delayed gratification.

That being said, short term things will keep on being flashy and cool with newer things and an ability to quickly roll out new stuff thanks to centralization making it easier. But those aren't a long term threat in of themselves, if anything they're healthy competition (as is bluesky). Unless actual political forces make it impossible or too impractical to run activitypub instances, the network now seems to have a good enough user base to make it worth while for people to invest their energy in developing it. So services that stay siloed and/or choose to not allow interop with it long term seem unlikely.

I'm in a positive mood for some reason today though, I might have a gloomier look on it in a few days.

Stefan Bohacek

@kunev @tchambers @bsky.brid.gy @pfrazee.com Hah, well I hope your positive mood stays with you long-term!

Tim Chambers

@stefan @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy

Am hoping as the bridge now is a proof of concept, that Paul and the BlueSky team find resources to build a bigger version, and have it become defaulted as opt out for BlueSky users, not opt in, as it is now. Also hope that as both AT protocol and AP protocols evolve, they find more ways to interop.

Think that is possible and if so: it really should happen.

Stefan Bohacek

@tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy Sure, that would be ideal.

I guess we'll see.

Emelia 👸🏻

@tchambers @pfrazee.com now if only more people did that on the ActivityPub side, we might all learn a thing or two.

Emelia 👸🏻

@stefan @tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy I could probably actually see them hiring @snarfed.org maybe, though the offer sounds like it would have to be something pretty impressive.

william.maggos

@stefan @tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy

on their call today which included a lot of history, they never mentioned AP or mastodon. talked a lot about closed platforms and how they started cause they wanted to open up social networking. on the most recent techdirt podcast, masnick reposted a show he guested on where he talked about his paper inspiring bluesky but also made it sound like he came up with decentralized social networks. all just an oversight I'm sure.

Stefan Bohacek

@wjmaggos @tchambers @pfrazee.com @bsky.brid.gy Yep, sounds like it!