Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet

I stopped reading when the "journalist" asked this question:
How did you end up starting a decentralized social platform?
How little research must one do to credulously repeat that PR talking point for a platform that is in fact completely centralized?
- I stopped at the bit about revolutionizing communication online. That revolution happened over a decade ago with the rise of social media. More social media is just more, not new.
  
  Decentralisation via activitypub is the next revolution
- Yall are so annoying. Bluesky is 2 years old. Mastodon is like 8 years old. Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.
  Yall have such a hate boner you dont even do research. No wonder normies will never use mastodon or lemmy yall are insufferable and mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features
  Edit: to anyone curious about keeping up with bluesky’s progress in decentralization and all the other stuff theyre working on here’s a good blog https://fediversereport.com/
  
  We don't have a hate boner. We see "decentralized" being thrown around like a buzzword and we know that it really doesn't apply to their platform.
  It's like the Libertarian Party taking the word "libertarian" and flipping the meaning to describe their ideology.
  It's a distortion of the spirit of the word and actual libertarians obviously want to clear up the misunderstandings that result from being introduced to the concept of libertarianism through such a group.
  
  ...mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features
  What new features does Bluesky have...?
  
  Reddit is now decentralized, I just set up nginx to cache it🤡
  Oh wait, PDS' don't even cache lol
  
  Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.
  Oh yeah? I can join that second server right now and communicate with folks on the main server?
  
  Do you have a link to the raspi instance?
  
  Bluesky’s model is built in a way that means it won’t ever be decentralized. There are plenty of articles about it.
  
  Oh, when did twitter add CWs that required a clickthrough? The ability to set your own character limit? When did it remove its algorithms to show you posts it considered relevant? When did it become open source? When did it become decentralised and federated? When did it start working on end-to-end encryption for DMs? When did it allow for built in themes?
  
  Do you have a link to people talking about running a relay on a raspberry pi? I find it hard to believe that's possible. A PDS, sure, but a relay requires multiple terabytes of storage alone and plenty of bandwidth/CPU/RAM that I just don't see a raspberry pi being able to support.
  I'd be curious to hear about any progress on setting up new relays though.
- I think that it's fair to want the interviewer to ask more critical questions and in general be more precise with their phrasing but
  repeat that PR talking point
  is a very cynical and uncharitable take on bluesky and decentralization. Cynical takes aren't necessarily wrong but they're not necessarily correct either.
  The AT protocol is by its own account an ongoing project with problems that still need be solved before it is able to provide a social network with all the properties that they're interested in.
  I don't think that it's accurate to say that bluesky is "completely" centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it's de-facto centralized. One reason for this is that it's prohibitively expensive to self-host relays. This is something that the AT protocol devs have plans for addressing, so it's possible that this de-facto centralization is a temporary stage in the evolution of bluesky and AT proto.
  It is of course possible that they are lying or that they will be unsuccessful despite best intentions but taking for granted that it's just a "PR talking point" is, once again, very cynical in a way that I don't think is completely motivated.
  
  I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized.
  That's like me calling myself a millionaire because I could theoretically be one at some point in the future. I am de facto not a millionaire, but I also have more than zero dollars. so I'm not completely a non-millionaire.
  
  I want to second this, and go further with a hot take: I liked Graber's answers a lot.
  I think skepticism of her and the entire artifice of VC and big tech is totally warranted. But a lot of people in this section seem to basically say, 'no matter what she says I don't trust her and I'm certain that BlueSky will be another bad actor.' And I think that's an overly simplistic take.
  It's true that there are no trustworthy CEOs. You shouldn't trust Graber. It will always be a mistake to pin hopes of good management of a platform on the magnanimity of any business leader. However if we want to see a new era of decentralization but are honest about the fact that most users are more likely to join big, corporate-styled platforms (in the short term, at least) then the ideal platform is one that attempts to build their business model around portability.
  It's totally true that BlueSky isn't there yet. But they're basically building a set of escape hatches for users. Cory Doctorow talks a lot about how restricting users from leaving a platform is a key requirement to enshitify. So if BlueSky uses a protocol that at least has the potential for this, they're creating an incentive structure that really does serve a purpose. They may later on try to reverse course. But at least for now, they're doing the thing that gives users and the third party developers the best chance of escape if things go bad. And that is exactly what I want to see from a big tech platform.

Let's see here... ahh yes, it's a company run by a board with a CEO based in Amerikkka. Who gives a shit if it's non-profit or not, the users are not in control. No thanks.
- It's also very much not non-profit.
  
  You're right, I guess the original thing by Jack Dorsey (Bluesky Protocol) was non-profit, but since becoming its own entity it is for-profit now. I conflated the two.
  They consider themselves a Benefit Corporation, which I just learned is likely for-profit pretending to be socially aware.

The fediverse will still be here when bluesky is killed by VCs

What I don't get is why anyone would ever choose commercial social media again given there are Activity Pub clones for practically everything now, where you aren't the product. So many people learned nothing from the ongoing Twitter debacle and the zillion Facebook privacy scandals apparently.
- Try using Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time. Bluesky is a twitter clone and perfect replacement. Mastodon is an excellent micro-blogging platform, but has none of the features people actually liked about twitter. People love recommendation algorithms and quote tweet dunking. That's the core of what it's all about. Mastodon is glorified RSS, which is great if you miss those days.
  
  Perhaps open federated systems should have recommendation algos too, just optional and open
  
  Follow a few interesting hashtags and you have your recommendation algorithm, but one you're in control of.
  
  fuck people liking shit .. and fuck people going back to american corporate tech... yes, I'm mad like that.
  
  Honestly I have used Blue Sky and Mastodon and Mastodon feels a lot more elegant to me, personally.
- Fediverse software tends to be kind of hostile to convenience features people have grown accustomed to. Recommendation algorithms, for example. Lemmy is on the cutting edge for having a "Hot" sort.
  I know Mastodon has historically been pretty hostile to even more basic things like being able to search posts.
  I get why they think like that, and I honestly agree with some of it, but it inevitably creates a culture shock for outsiders coming from corpo media. I think that plus the network effect means the fediverse will always be kind of niche.
- Commercial software has advertising: people whose job is to advertise it. That means TV and web ads for Bluesky, influencers talking about it. It also means a team of software engineers building parts of the system specifically to draw people in, whereas non-commercial software often rejects that (lack of infinite-scroll on Lemmy's default UI, for example).
  Activity Pub also requires a different mind-set that doesn't exist elsewhere on the internet today. You need to decide which instance to join, or maybe to host your own instance. But it doesn't really matter, because you can federate with other instances. But you have to drive some of that federation, so it does matter a little. It's pretty complex and confusing and its a problem that only exists in this one niche of software.
  Bluesky gives you an infinite feed that feels like you're connected to the entire Internet without you doing any work. I think the AP service are doing really well, considering what they're up against.
- Is Activity Pub integrated into Lemmy yet?
  
  It is and always has been as far as I'm aware
  
  I thought it was built on activity pub.
  I'm gonna go over to my Mastodon account and try to reply to you. One sec.
  
  @60d @heavyboots It is supposed to be but I'm not seeing any mastodon replies showing up on Lemmy yet so I thought I'd give it a try. The fact that I can see your reply from mastodon and reply to it proves something 🤔
  
  @60d @heavyboots
  Kinda? This is @andrewrgross tooting at you from Mastodon, but I had to search for your address to find this comment. And I couldn't find it from a different server. So... yes, but actually no.
  Still, I find it fascinating the degree that they're connected. I'm gonna go see if this showed up on Lemmy now.
  
  @60d hasn't it been?
- They just follow the herd. I wonder who directs the herd...

All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.
... but probably not.

"What are we doing today, Jay?"
"The same thing we're doing every day, Kate. Trying to take over the social internet!"
- "Egad, Jay, brilliant! Oh, wait, no, it's just going to become enshittified like every other centralized platform."

You have mastodon, which actually made a federated social media platform, but which has failed to become mainstream, and Blue sky which became mainstream, but has failed to actually become federated.
- Overall, I like the options today a lot better than what we had 10 or even 5 years ago.
  I am glad that both Mastodon and Blue Sky exist. I would like both to be successful.
  
  I would like both to be successful.
  Same
- Mastodon didn't eat the world, but it's pretty successful. I have a great time over there.

Decentralized app plotting a total takeover of the social internet? Are these tryouts for the mental gymnastics invitational?
- The mental gymnasics part is the claim that Bluesky is decentralized.
  
  Yes

this is potentially the last social identity you have to create.
..as long as you stay centralized on the central BlueSky instance. Once you move out to a (potential, future) federated server, that identity (and it's super duper verification) doesn't follow you.

Y'all are forgetting how hostile Mastodon users can be. Personally I feel a little bit scared of posting anything there.

"Today, social media, tomorrow the world! Muahahahaha!"

Are they building an army with troops, tanks, aircraft and naval ships? Are they going to physically and violently take over the social internet?

Oh no, the twitter people going back to twitter after sold them out. This will end in tears.

Normies will be using weibo before they use Mastodon

Now if only I could get a meaningful reply to a bug preventing complete account deletion, either on github or from support. It seems they modeled their support structure on Google's.

As I waited to meet with Pleroma-tan, the mascot and CEO of Pleroma, on the 5th floor of a walk-up in Alphabet City, I stared out at the city’s grimy streets and thought: Goddess forbid it. Stretching in every direction was a wall of dense, gray, tragically kaleidoscopic fog. And here I was about to interview the head of a social platform named after some kind of ancient Greek spiritual shit, or something. In camera, no less.
Then something miraculous happened. Moments before the legendary fox-maiden showed up, the haze lifted. Avenue D glittered in the sun. I could see past shitposter.club's rolling hills all the way to a emoji-capped peak, and the skies were, yup, completely and totally whirling.
The 324-year-old executive cuts a different figure than most social media bosses. Earlier this year, after Mark Zuckleborg wore a shirt winking at his king-like status at Meta, Pleroma-tan was busy doing a 24-hour live stream of Mario Kart while delivering a lecture about the metaphysics of Stoicism and didn't even hear about it.
Indeed, she seems most energized when she’s talking about the unique infrastructures underlying social media and all reality as well as several smaller apps, the Fediverse, or Fedi, which is a spellbook that servers use to communicate. The open source protocols allow the sovereign nations of the digital mindspaces to fully integrate with one another as needed. Any number of apps with complementary or contradictory ideas about moderation or immoderation or teleportation can work in tandem — or not. It’s up to them.
Pleroma-tan sees fedi as nothing less than the deocratized future of the social socials, and she emphasizes to me that developers are actively building new projects, here and elsewhere. In her dreams, these projects are as big, if not bigger, than Manhattan. Her ambitions might not be kinky, in other words, but they are fluffy. For now, call her an insurgent wonder worker — on whom the sun still shines.