Bluesky lost? I’m all for corporate social media losing, but I think Bluesky has a bigger chance than Mastodon to become as big as Twitter at its peak, because of the money behind it. At least for the short/medium term. Long term, when Bluesky inevitably also falls due to enshittification or what not, Mastodon might win, unless it has splintered into a bunch of defederated clusters of drama at that point.
Personally I’ll never join another corporate social media platform ever again. But I’m in a miniscule minority.
Yeah I was about to say, I could see an argument for Mastodon having lost (it’s momentum, which is the only thing it truly has going for it), but Bluesky? ~every podcaster I follow now advertises they’re on bluesky instead of twitter, and most youtubers link to their bluesky, too. At least in the US it seems to have gotten decently popular tbh.
OTOH, we have the BBC and Flipboard being all-in on Mastodon, granted. Which is going to be fun when people get around to defederating them considering how it went for Threads.
How would Bluesky be falling to enshittification if it can be federated just like Mastodon?
Everyone always says Mastodon can’t be ruined this way because you can always move to another Mastodon instance. Wouldn’t that also be the case for Bluesky, once federation kicks off?
There’s a for profit corporation behind it and they have investors. They’ll find a way when they decide they need ROI and increase profits. They still haven’t even disclosed how they’ll monetize the platform afaik so they’re just living off of investor capital thus far. First step of enshittification is when they monetize the platform. How it works when federated depends on how it’s designed (I have no idea), but what happens to the network if Bluesky Social PBC goes under?
The issue, at least for me, is proprietary software. The protocol is open and the company seems to be non profit, both big plusses, but there is no reason whatsoever to make the software proprietary imo. Federation (depending with whom) is only good if one can use non proprietary software, otherwise they control you again.
But the AT Protocol is open, isn’t it? Anyone can go ahead and create non proprietary software that lives on this protocol.
I understand your concerns regarding Bluesky specifically being proprietary, but as soon as someone creates an open source atproto server, you will be able to interact with Bluesky users without using proprietary software. It will require Bluesky to federate with instances using such software of course.
I agree that this would be a solution. Bluesky adding a bridge for ap would be 100.000 times easier though.
Why would anyone start anew? We have similar platforms already. One big downside is that someone buying into at protocol would need to start anew and bluesky is already so big that any instance needs to submit to their rule or wither.
Edit: any new instance would have to submit to their rule.
Bluesky lost? I’m all for corporate social media losing, but I think Bluesky has a bigger chance than Mastodon to become as big as Twitter at its peak, because of the money behind it. At least for the short/medium term. Long term, when Bluesky inevitably also falls due to enshittification or what not, Mastodon might win, unless it has splintered into a bunch of defederated clusters of drama at that point.
Personally I’ll never join another corporate social media platform ever again. But I’m in a miniscule minority.
I‘m in this minuscule minority with you. Fuck corpos.
There are many of us!
amen!
Yeah I was about to say, I could see an argument for Mastodon having lost (it’s momentum, which is the only thing it truly has going for it), but Bluesky? ~every podcaster I follow now advertises they’re on bluesky instead of twitter, and most youtubers link to their bluesky, too. At least in the US it seems to have gotten decently popular tbh.
OTOH, we have the BBC and Flipboard being all-in on Mastodon, granted. Which is going to be fun when people get around to defederating them considering how it went for Threads.
How would Bluesky be falling to enshittification if it can be federated just like Mastodon?
Everyone always says Mastodon can’t be ruined this way because you can always move to another Mastodon instance. Wouldn’t that also be the case for Bluesky, once federation kicks off?
There’s a for profit corporation behind it and they have investors. They’ll find a way when they decide they need ROI and increase profits. They still haven’t even disclosed how they’ll monetize the platform afaik so they’re just living off of investor capital thus far. First step of enshittification is when they monetize the platform. How it works when federated depends on how it’s designed (I have no idea), but what happens to the network if Bluesky Social PBC goes under?
The issue, at least for me, is proprietary software. The protocol is open and the company seems to be non profit, both big plusses, but there is no reason whatsoever to make the software proprietary imo. Federation (depending with whom) is only good if one can use non proprietary software, otherwise they control you again.
But the AT Protocol is open, isn’t it? Anyone can go ahead and create non proprietary software that lives on this protocol.
I understand your concerns regarding Bluesky specifically being proprietary, but as soon as someone creates an open source atproto server, you will be able to interact with Bluesky users without using proprietary software. It will require Bluesky to federate with instances using such software of course.
I agree that this would be a solution. Bluesky adding a bridge for ap would be 100.000 times easier though.
Why would anyone start anew? We have similar platforms already. One big downside is that someone buying into at protocol would need to start anew and bluesky is already so big that any instance needs to submit to their rule or wither.
Edit: any new instance would have to submit to their rule.