Regular reminder that Bluesky is a VC-funded company which inevitably is headed for the same fate shared by all VC-funded companies. It must maintain hypergrowth until it either:

Devil Lu Linvega

@yosh I hadn't checked up on BS for a while, I thought it was federated but it doesn't seem like there's any decentralization happening yet, it's all just one big server. Is it me or are people very confused by startup technologies and their cyclical nature

Risotto Voted

@neauoire @yosh even if you host part of it using your own PDS it still has several centralized chokepoints on either clients or search or signups or native apps...

yosh

No no Yosh, you’ve got it all wrong you see. Bluesky is a “public benefit corporation” that means that they’re not just out for money. Instead they’ve got to, uh,

…

umm,, let’s check Wikipedia:

Benefit corporation - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

> “Their activities may or may not differ much from traditional corporations.”

…oh.

gaytabase

@yosh but they may!

yosh

@dysfun

Impossible is nothing. But likely? Not when you owe VC firms millions.

Marsh Ray

@yosh @dysfun When it all seems bad, just remember that the history of the internet is mostly one wonderful thing emerging by accident from 1,000 bad ideas executed by people having the full spectrum of motivations and time horizons.

In other words, don’t fear the AOL-TimeWarner or MCI-WorldCom merger.

yosh

@marshray @dysfun

? this line of reasoning only makes sense if you believe the status quo is the best things could possibly be.

Oliphantom Menace

@yosh This person gets it. ^{^{^}}

yosh

“No but like, Bluesky’s protocol is good! Even better than ActivityPub.”

Sure, I have no doubt. Talented people have worked on it. But what does it mean when the money people come knocking?

Absolutely nothing. Just because a company published docs online on how to access their API for free provides no guarantee they’ll keep granting you access to their API free of charge in the future.

Twitter once had a public API. So did Reddit*. Both wanted to make more money. Now they no longer do.

Marsh Ray

@yosh @dysfun Right. Any sufficiently complex system is under no obligation to make sense.

Uncool mouse

@yosh it's also frustrating that they just say they're "decentralized" and despite there not being other bsky servers or their "protocol" actually being a protocol the same way HTTP or ActivityPub are protocols, folks actuall believe them!?

It's like I just name margarine "I can't believe it's not butter" and like 90% of people including those who know how make their own butter be like "oh yeah, this is totally butter!"

Chrisshy Keygen

@yosh we should WISH they took that on as debt. Investor money is worse than debt. If a bank gives you a loan the bank is gonna be thrilled if you can give them a 10% return. If an investor gives you millions, they are gonna want billions back, and will insist you do whatever it takes to do that.

Ive gotten to the point where I don't trust anyone who's taken that devils bargain

Stefan Bohacek

@yosh This is why I love the fediverse. Built from the ground up, grassroots. We have to figure out how to pay for things as we go. Not saying things are perfect here, or that there aren't struggles.

But not having to go into debt for any of this is pretty neat.

bryan newbold

@anvit @yosh in what way is atproto not a protocol the same way BitTorrent and Matrix are protocols?

there are there written documents and multiple independent implementations interoperating.

Bluesky the company is a large share of the network, but the system is designed for "credible exit".

bryan newbold

@yosh if your principled stance is against all companies which take investment, then sure, that is a consistent reason to distrust Bluesky. being a Public Benefit Corporation is nice-to-have but is pretty unproven and far from being a non-profit.

our goal is to build a system which is resistant to the enshittification cycle, and I think we are well on our way to that goal.

bryan newbold

@yosh we have demonstrated a lot of core functionality which has been discussed for years but never implemented in other protocols and app ecosystems. even if the whole atproto project implodes, I think it is provided a lot for protocols like AP to learn from (as we have from them).

we are going to try many other business models before ads, and have time/money to do so. our current board has pretty legit folks on it. original funding was a contract for no equity, not VC.

Uncool mouse

@bnewbold @yosh it is a glorified API. I would hardly call the other implementations independent, I'm sure you're aware they need to talk to Bsky's central server. You can not spin up an independent instance the same way one can spin up mastodon server.

Uncool mouse

@bnewbold @yosh also I have yet to hear a single credible reason from Bsky's devs for why they had to come up with a brand new standard when one that was already an existing one that was mature, pretty flexible, and was backed by W3C.

bryan newbold

@anvit @yosh what are your goal posts and criteria?

I think atproto is much more than an API. you don't need to talk to any single server. each network service is replaceable and has "exit". sure, not like mastodon.

"why not ActivityPub" is a big topic and hard to boil down, they are very different systems. the shortest answer I have is that AP is very web 2.0 ecosystem and tech, while AT is developed by folks coming from P2P and content addressed ecosystem (SSB, dat, bittorrent, git).

Riley S. Faelan

@yosh Er, in commercial theory, 'debt' and 'stock' are very different kinds of beasts.