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:

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.

Mastodon Migration VOTED

@bnewbold @yosh

bryan, basically you said nothing here. How do your bosses pay your salary once the $8M runs out? It's a simple question.

Trying other "models". What does that mean? Who is the customer? Where does the revenue come from?

bryan newbold

@mastodonmigration @yosh we announced we are working on a couple revenue models recently:

we already sell domain names. this is a multi-billion dollar commodity market with great margins.

we are going to do paid subscriptions, where users pay us directly. some just want to support us. can also redistribute to other projects in the ecosystem. similar to discord nitro. "aesthetic flair", not pay-for-ranking.

longer term, we are interested in facilitating payments, like ko-fi/patreon

Mastodon Migration VOTED

@bnewbold @yosh

Sure bryan, that's exactly what your investors are thinking of as long term ways to monetize the platform. ‍️

bryan newbold

@mastodonmigration @yosh what are your assumptions? for the record

Mastodon Migration VOTED

@bnewbold @yosh

You seem like a nice guy, and you probably believe what you are posting. But what you will learn in due course, if you stay in the tech industry, is that money does not work the way you think. Your bosses are lying to you. And if they are not, they are deluded too. When the inevitable parting of ways between the idealistic entrepreneurs and their benevolent benefactor (sarcasm intended) venture capitalists arrives, the money wins. Every time.