This article is a must read.

RE: https://mas.to/@Aubreader/116330793703168577

This article is a must read.

An excerpt: “Why would anyone fund an Atmosphere project if #Bluesky, with $100 million in the bank, might ship a competing feature at any moment? Why would a founder bet their career on this ecosystem? The presentation didn't just hurt Graze. It made the entire ecosystem look unfundable.”

Why do I keep bringing up this topic?

Because #ATproto is often put in the same category as #ActivityPub (“open protocols yay”) but I strongly disagree with that stance

@_elena they think algorithmically sorting people *in the context of discursive discussion* can be good. They are wrong

@_elena reading that article I also stopped at that sentence. I totally love the fact that nobody think activitypub is a good place to do VC funding of startups ... It proves it's sane enough

@_elena thank you for sharing the article.

The same considerations should be honestly made for the #ActivityPub fediverse as well. So we may address them in time. Not all is well. I am writing a blog post on open standards divergence and increasing unattractiveness of an ecosystem that hems itself into a straitjacket of narrow application areas, by the protocol decay we allow to fester. Combined with inadequate work methods to reconcile the tech debt that this incurs. We must go "back to standards" or have an ecosystem based on enabling technologies that are increasingly unattractive to adopt.

@_elena - completely agree with this. If Bluesky have taken $100m then someone is expecting north of $1b back, so the question is whether there's a way to achieve that which is aligned with the community, and even if there is, whether management has the discipline (and strategic skill) to avoid being distracted by easier wins or bigger prizes. We've had more than 20 years of people trying and failing to do that, and I've not seen anyone credibly arguing that something fundamental has changed.

We mustn't be complacent about ActivityPub though - as I see it there are very few protocols which are genuinely open, to the extent that they couldn't be easily captured by a sufficiently well funded motivated party. Those which are (HTTP, email, JSON, etc.) have been widely used for a long time, so there's a lot more work to do.

@_elena it's a mess that keeps growing, and we will be left to compost it, too much #techshit, and we all start to stink - why would anyone use the #openweb with that bad smell. The last time this happened was the #encryptionists with the #blockchain mess, there is a big overlap with #bluesky

@_elena This is why I'll _almost_ never understand the excitement around the #ATmosphere . It's designed with FOSS aesthetics and private interest profiteering in mind.

Not to say that #ActivityPub doesn't have some pretty big problems, it does. Ones that #Bluesky does a much better job with. But with ActivityPub? It's not designed or built around a private platform first. It was built to be an open ecosystem from its inception.

Bluesky was built to be open as a side quest, not a driving mission.

@JessieHealdUK spot on thank you for sharing this

@hamishcampbell I'm getting big EEE vibes from Bluesky - I hope my instinct is wrong

@_elena Sadly, it isn’t - and it’s painfully visible. @evan called this right from the start, and he was right on this.

This is #techshit, spreading a miasma over the #openweb. And when it inevitably fails, the rotting stink will linger, making it even harder for people to take the step they need to take.

@_elena interestingly this was the exact play of twitter - you can see the DNA.

@_elena Some grey beard tech wisdom here. Back in the day the big tech players would set up a sales channel, invite you to be a partner, incentivize you and then after you built your channel they'd promptly screw you over and steal the customers. You'd know when you received an email about "exciting changes for channel partners". This is the same behavior. Mikes first law of tech business, big tech always screws the channel. Or should we say in 2026 big social always screws the community.

@mike@thecanadian.social do you think this is a result of the corporate atmosphere from back in those days?

I (perhaps inaccurately) feel like as of the 2010s, if you were nimble enough to outcompete an entrenched incumbent, the playbook would be to acquire your company.

@_elena

yes but the developers trying to build VC futures on AT don't understand the beauty of decentralization.

whatever you come up with, you're not going to be crazy rich. your service or app will be one of many implementations that do very similar things and where people can switch easily. hopefully many people will pay you a reasonable amount to keep it great but it's going to be a lifestyle business, not a sellout and retire or start again type thing.

@mike @_elena

Dad used to tell a story about a lawn mower manufacturer back in the early 1900s. They made a great lawn mower, and sold 1000 of them per year. They we're approached by Sears Roebuck and got an order for another 1000 doubling their business. Then Sears wanted 5000. They borrowed heavily and expanded to fulfill the order. Then 10,000. Then 50,000. You see where this is going.

-more-

@mike @_elena

Sears showed up on day and said they were renegotiating the deal and were only going to pay 75% of the price per mower. The company had no choice, but to accept even though they were now losing money on each unit sold. Then suddenly Sears began offering their own mower, and stopped buying any at all and the company, full of debt, was ruined.

Same as it ever was...

@hamishcampbell @_elena

I see three outcomes for Bluesky:

1. They keep working on opening up the ATmosphere.
2. They try to claw back value from the developer ecosystem (FB and Twitter did this in early 2010s).
3. They run out of money and shut down.

Here, "they" means the current corporate entity or an acquirer. If there's another outcome I'm missing, lmk!

@hamishcampbell @_elena

If they stay open and of goodwill indefinitely, awesome. Great for everyone.

@_elena while I truly do feel for the author, who seems to have had both his livelihood and his ideals shaken... what did he expect? what reasonable person could think things were going to turn out any differently?

The clawback scenario usually happens when there's a change of management. I think it's great that when that happened, Toni Schneider took up the CEO job. He's got a good background in Open Source and standards from Automattic.

@hamishcampbell @_elena