@MeaningfulBits @hamishcampbell @_elena

I can assure you that the people at A New Social are not trying to actively sabotage you.

@evan @hamishcampbell @_elena

Since they have $100M in the bank, 3 is probably a way off. AFACT, they are currently doing both 1 and 2 in parallel; if you look at their protocol engineers, I do believe they are really all in on 1, but much of the rest of the company is taking every opportunity to act in a decentralized manner and going in the opposite direction.

@ricci @hamishcampbell @_elena well, they had $100M when they raised money last year.

Crypto funds love to rollover crypto assets. So maybe some of it was in crypto, like Bitcoin, which has since dropped 25% against USD.

And they've been operating a tech startup with 20-30 staff and dozens of contractors, plus hosting costs which are somewhere in the $20-50M/year range, I'd bet.

If I had to guess on runway for BlueSky today, I'd say 12-24 months.

@julian You're thinking too big, like startup VC mode. I'm talking small company in the trenches selling stuff to SMBs then your big tech partner comes in and says thanks for the clients your end is now close to zero.

@mastodonmigration @_elena He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing. - Dune

@_elena

After reading, it leaves me with concerns that are not dev related.

1. If there's xlarge $ infusions involved, it means profit will always be 1st, and fuck the tech. They will never care.

2. If they'll eat their young once - and don't wince about it - they WILL do it again and enjoy it more aggressively every time.

3. Once they have a taste of their own, they'll feed on other's 'outside the family'.

They want performing monkeys, not projects with merit.

@lumiworx I sometimes feel like I'm not a good "team player" when I point out weaknesses in the ATproto world. Big elephant in the room: the 100 million dollars in VC money by crypto bros. A lot of people I cherish are all for promoting both protocols (ATproto and ActivityPub), but I remain highly skeptical. And afraid. ATproto gives me big EEE vibes

@mike @mastodonmigration very true

@evan @ricci @hamishcampbell this is really eye-opening information Evan. I hadn't guessed the runway would be so short

@evan my criticism wasn't aimed at Attie per se or its use of AI. They are free to do whatever they want to do.

But Graze was a big project in the Atmosphere (even I had heard of it). Graze allows the creation of custom feeds and were a major sponsor of the AthmosphereConf.

They got completely blindsided by an announcement by Bluesky - at the conference they had sponsored! - of a directly competing project. This blog post (from the POV of a dev) is a must read: https://trezy.com/blog/the-marshmallow-test

@evan @hamishcampbell yes but what is truly concerning - as far as I can tell - is that forks of Bluesky like Eurosky are not THAT independent.

Check out this post by @Sascha from last week: https://bonn.social/@Sascha/116306169278312468

Eurosky was rate-limited by Bluesky and its users couldn't post for 2 hours! And thanked Bluesky for verification...

@_elena

I don't think that would be accurate at all, in terms of what I presume most might think.

Assuming my memories haven't failed me yet, @Gargron saw a need for a community solution, and decided to tackle it as people-centric, rather than seeking a profit generator social replacement to fill his bank account.

Other's have sought the opposite, and as time goes on, the altruistic mask has fallen away, and they can't escape the obvious.

Never think it doesn't need some sunlight.

@_elena @lumiworx I for one am not one of those people. For me it's ActivityPub only.

@Gargron @lumiworx very nice to hear that Eugen.

Fellow member of team ActivityPub only ‍️

@_elena in my experience, the main determinant for any technology’s long-term development is how control over it is structured. It’s all a question of power.

Technologies where power is centralized often grow quickly. Some achieve monopoly status, most others die.

Technologies where power is distributed often grow much more slowly. But they’re exceedingly resilient. Over time, many become part of the fabric of society.

@lumiworx

@slothrop @lumiworx absolutely. that's a beautiful way to put it. it reminds me of an analogy that @ozoned made a while ago, comparing the fediverse to Linux.

We don't need EVERYONE in the world to be here to be successful. Slow, organic growth is amazing.

And look at where Linux is now!

@slothrop @_elena @Gargron

I remember a phrase that was drilled into me during college that fits in an oblique way here...

"You can have good, or you can have fast, but you'll never get both."

@_elena @ricci @hamishcampbell I'm not an expert, I have no inside information, and I could be wildly off in either direction. It's just an estimate based on public information and simple arithmetic.

@lumiworx @slothrop @Gargron excellent! I personally don't really see the upsides of "fast". Slow, organic growth is great.

As I said to someone else, look at where Linux is now!

@slothrop@chaos.social @_elena@mastodon.social @lumiworx@mastodon.social Excellent way to put it for sure.

Centralization is easy. You control it all. It's not good for people that want innovation and choice.

Decentralization brings freedom, innovation, choice, but offers a lot of technical roadblocks.

I just want choice. I can choose what's best for my family. I don't need Tim Apple, or whoever to tell me what's good for us, while trapping us into a fish bowl and making us work for our food.