I'm not the author, just sharing.

I mean.....yeah. The guy who created Bluesky is the same guy who created Twitter originally. What makes you think anything would be different? I'm honestly surprised they're even humoring the idea of decentralization.

He also left Bluesky in 2024 after it didn't become the libertarian techbro wankfest he envisioned and was instead heavily populated by folks who didn't want to slob Elon's knob.

And he fucked a potato after peeling it and putting it in a sandwich baggy!

I do think the people behind it like the idea of data portability and decen, just not enough to compromise their business for it.

Are you asking people to send you photos of that?

It's popularity had nothing to do with the protocol and making cries to such does nothing.

Make fediverse competitive client wise, and stop screeching at peoples in the center when they call Gavin progressive 🤷‍♂️. It's not the tech that keeps people away, it's the users.

Yeah, but it has a good UI and isn't a massive echo chamber so what cha gonna do?

Normies just get screeched at by tankies and nerds and leave 🤷‍♂️

The cries are about how Bluesky uses it and implements the required infrastructure, not the protocol itself.

I've run into people like that on Bluesky much more than on the fediverse. They do of course exist on both.

lol, how is it not a massive echo chamber when that has been the constant complaint in countless articles that keep getting made fun of instead of being taken seriously on Bluesky.

He publicly distanced himself but Bluesky's ownership is very opaque and they do dishonest PR very well so I would not be at all surprised if Dorsey still owns a part of it.

Agreed. They're both open on the internet and the data is in many repositories. Moot point (OPs', not yours).

Why would people here consider Bluesky when Mastodon already exists?

Network effects.

IMO this is unfair and conspiratorial. The people behind Bluesky have been quite clear about where they are trying to go (i.e. not simply replace Twitter), some of those people have a lot of credibility in this area, built up over years. Maybe they make different assumptions about tech and user preferences but I see no reason to assume evil intentions.

This seems to be the closest to a reasoned argument in this thread. Realistically, what should they be doing differently?

you mean the social network whose CEO told users to simply stop posting on their platform when she refused to ban a publicly known racist and transphob from the platform? that social network? The social network whose users decided segregating themselves was the best way to use said platform? that one?

Bluesky is a joke and its userbase are the punchline.

It not necessarily about evil intentions, instead that without an easy off-ramp for users, a platform is eventually guaranteed to get enshittified, especially if they rely on investor money (which Bluesky does, see their post 1, post 2).

Cory Doctorow wrote a few pieces about the topic:

• Fool Me Twice We Don’t Get Fooled Again
• Bluesky and enshittification

Pretty funny to see this here because this blog post seems like written with AI assistance ("it's not just x, it's y", etc.) and also its author advocates for Nostr instead.

The main argument against bsky is that they're still holding all of your data, unless you self host your own server.

I don't actually see how Lemmy is much different. Most users are not self hosting on Lemmy either, you're trusting your data to a 3rd party. The main difference seems to be that there's much more centralisation on bsky.

I think it's entirely reasonable to be wary of any service, be ready to delete your account if it goes to shit or whatever it is you need to do to feel safe.

But right now, I like blue sky. I've had far more positive interactions on there than I ever had on twitter (even before musk took it over), the lists feature that lets you pre-emptively block entire swathes of dickheads is a game changer (I just block one group, anyone Maga) and I'm having a good time.

I expect I'll get downvoted for this but honestly I don't care, the world has gone to shit far too much for me to give a crap about what internet strangers think over my own health and wellbeing and right now I'm having a good time and will not apologise for it.

The second that stops, I'll be leaving bsky.

Fair enough. But, as you know already, AT Protocol is not chained to Bluesky. Other things are already being built on it (Blacksky for instance). Sure, the startup costs of federation are high, but that was a technical choice. To insist that it's all a plot to become the next evil Twitter continues to feel a bit swivel-eyed to me.

Adulation of for profit big tech assholes is near ubitious.

You're right that the issue isn't just trusting a third party in general, that's how it is for most users on Lemmy or Mastodon too.

The difference isn’t whether you personally run a server. It’s whether the network depends on a single company.

Bluesky operating basically all of the infrastructure on that network means:

• they decide moderation policy and what content gets boosted or hidden for everyone
• they alone can change the rules for access and in general (ads, pay to be seen etc.)
• they can de-prioritize or cut off third-party infrastructure
• if the company fails, pivots or is pressured legally (I'm sure the current US government could never do such a thing), the network can effectively collapse

Here on Lemmy there is no single company that has all that power. If your admin goes bad there are real options to move to and the network will still exist even if they shut their service down. You also have much more leverage over here because you have those options and no operator is drawing in tens or hundreds of millions from investors who get to make the decisions.

Not much substance to your comment... do you agree with it?

It obviously matters whether the data and control is mostly in one company's hands, not just whether it is in "many repositories".

This is yet another version of the ridiculous "we're decentralized in theory so it doesn't matter that we aren't in practice" argument which the article does address. In practice it is chained because they are in complete control of the real-world use of it.

People are even worried about Google's control over Android recently and Google has much less power over AOSP than Bluesky Corp. has over ATproto.

What is swivel-eyed is believing that Venture Capitalists won't do the thing they've historically always done in the past when they're in control.

Do you not get 'open on the internet'? All the three letter agencies hoover the data up, your countries equivalents do as well, other companies. It's only a bit in one companies hands, because it's 'open on the internet', just like xitter, facebook, tiktok, their walled gardens don't stop state level actors, just us plebs (a bit). That just leaves control (in real time), some power, some money there, but long term it's the data that counts.

From the second article:

But I'm not on Bluesky and I don't have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will

Bluesky is a joke and its userbase are the punchline.

Succinctly said, I love it

Bluesky built the platform that people actually want.

Mainly an algorithmic feed and more relaxed and diverse userbase.

they are in complete control of the real-world use of it

They're not. I mentioned Blacksky.

As I understand it, their endgame is that Bluesky will be a big fish in a pond of other fish, and that the best way to get that fishpond is to make Bluesky as good a product as possible, hence the (limited) VC money.

As a strategy it has risks but so does the alternative. To make the obvious comparison, UX on the fediverse is rubbish, with an incomprehensible onboarding funnel, amateurish design, servers that keep disappearing. There's a reason Bluesky has eaten the fediverse's lunch.

With respect, I think people here are making this into a sterile religious war when really it's a disagreement about strategy. Some of the people who vouch for Bluesky I have been following for years. They want exactly the same things as most people here. Personally, I see no reason to question their intentions.

@JubilantJaguar @73ms I'll take the "eeewww ugly UI" risk over the "high barriers to decentralization" risk.

Blacksky does not fundamentally change the situation. They've got a yearly budget in excess of $100,000 and roughly 0.01% of the users. Bluesky can make all those users completely disappear from the other 99.99% with the press of a button and in the case of Link they did exactly that.

As for the "let's trust the Bluesky team" idea, that's of course exactly what got everyone into this mess with Twitter. The leadership can change. The investors can push them to do what they want no matter how great people the public facing team may seem to be (and honestly some of the things they've done has not inspired trust).

They captured some hype but nowadays you often see people complain that the userbase isn't diverse and that all they talk about is US politics, there's lots of dormant accounts and the active user statistics have been looking pretty bleak since early 2025.

Assuming they don't actually have 100M in funding already secured (which i doubt) I think there's some doubt over how long they'll actually be able to continue operating this way.

I don't think you're even talking about the points the article makes... You probably wouldn't want them selling your data either but this is more about avoiding the kind of fate Twitter had.

("it's not just x, it's y", etc.)

Keep in mind, the AIs learned from us. So that's a thing in AI responses because humans use that structure. Same with em dashes.

OK I get all that and it's not to be dismissed. But their product is better than what we have here. That's why Blacksky built upon it and not upon this, despite the cost. The excessive centralization seems to be more of a human problem than a technical one. Humans take the path of least resistance and Bluesky's resources have allowed it to make a product that the fediverse will never be able to compete with.

Personally, I get what I want here (I don't use Bluesky) but it's pretty clear to me that I'm not representative (in caring about the principle of decentralization) and neither are you. I'm a pragmatist by nature. Bluesky and AT Proto are an obvious improvement on Twitter. If they have the potential to be a version of decentralization that actually takes off and goes mainstream (because let's be serious, the fediverse is not doing that), then personally I would take that win. It hasn't happened yet but personally I'm not going to spit on it in advance like everyone here is doing.

If twitter but with less right wing voices is what the people wanted then they will be sorely disappointed when bluesky enshittifies with no real recourse to prevent it. If everyone just hops on over to blacksky or whatever other 3rd party relay exists, they’ve still got the same problem. All the power resides in a single entity. Bluesky’s basic defense of their platform is that if they enshittify then ATProto allows some other benevolent corporation to take their place but has one major flaw. Corporations are not benevolent

Because the most common people complaining about Bluesky fall into 1 of 2 groups:

People upset that Bluesky isn't tolerating their behavior (mostly Nazis and transphobes angry about the community not letting it become Truth Social 2 or allowing transphobes to harass users, but also certain leftist groups, much like the tankies here on Lemmy)

People upset that the infrastructure isn't FOSS or some similar complaint about it not being enough (purity test behavior like in every comment section on Lemmy)

And people saying that Bluesky is an echo chamber tend to fall very heavily into group 1.

I agree. But it's a bit scary even for Lemmy, given that all the most active communities are currently hosted on the same 1 or 2 biggest instances.

Also, see what recently happened to LemmyNSFW...

Yes but in this specific case the author owns up to using Claude for "editing" of the blog entries.

With the fediverse it IS the tech. Lack of recommendation engines, and overall more sluggish experience compared to established social media does deter a lot of people away. Some things might change, but lot of stuff that makes social media better for most people is against what fediverse wants

Fair enough. I guess I'm just overly sensitive to the broad-strokes assumption that any given thing is an AI "smoking gun" since I'm an em dash user.

You're assuming the only way to run the network is to be benevolent? Do you think there is no way they can raise enough revenue to cover costs without enshittifying? Normal people have a pretty high tolerance for monetization. Premium subs, ads in app purchases will probably easily cover running costs and I wouldnt consider that to be enshittified.

Also the amount of right wing voices on the platform doesnt matter. The tools make it easy to block them out.

I really really REALLY don't get people who leave one company turned bad to turn to another company trying the same thing.

They'll be the good guys for sure!

Bluesky is federated though. Like, you can selfhost every part of it and communicate with bsky users just fine: see wafrn and blacksky.

You can argue that it's not decentralised because one instance has 99% of the users though