Apart from getting funded by crypto-bros, BlueSky promised to allow federation, and hasn’t. Seems any time VCs or talk of IPOs happens, the only way is down.
Why would people be eager to have a place like them joining the fedi? When Meta was first looking to add in threads there was a big push to tell every admin they need to proactively defederate from it. They may not be as notoriously bad as Meta when it comes to using and abusing the population, but it’s still a commercial entity with the ability to do so and a will for profit.
Why would people be eager to have a place like them joining the fedi?
If BlueSky were federated it would mean you could move to another server and keep the followers you built there. All the Big Tech offerings keep you locked in, and at risk of losing the work you put in at their whim.
Yes, but I was comparing it to why is BlueSky welcome but Threads is not? Frankly I’d just as sooner keep all commercial entities out of the fedi, but there’s no way to stop them from adding that functionality.
Not that there’s anything stopping some instance of established fedi space from going rogue, sweeping up data and feeding ads either, but at least that’s not their established model today.
You can actually host your own data now. There are still centralized parts, but they have been getting progressively fewer. ATproto is fundamentally a sane way to do stuff. Choosing to grow the network and the tech stack at the same time is an interesting decision, but it seems to be working.
Anyway, what keeps me on blue sky is not the tech, it’s the fact that it’s a thoroughly nice place to hang out. The nuclear block works wonders against jerks, and the focus on accessibility is very very nice.
I agree with the text and I think the author got most things right. For the last part, while I see that it diverged from enshittification, it can also be, well, descriptions we used before. Bluesky sounds like the good old tactics of selling customers unnecessary features they don’t need nor want. I’m pretty sure that’s how they’ll get away with it. I also see the whole crypto be shoehorned into the platform as purely optional and “oh look, for using Bluesky and not the competition, you got free crypto” and then design it in such a way that only poweruser have any real benefit from the crypto. Free money. However I see no benefit in Bluesky and will just stay on Lemmy, that’s the whole point of the Fediverse.
