The schadenfreude and gloating in the #fediverse about the #bluesky outage is indicative of the infantile tribalism that prevails around here.

The schadenfreude and gloating in the #fediverse about the #bluesky outage is indicative of the infantile tribalism that prevails around here. It's pathetic because it indicates a lack of appreciation of the enormity of the challenge of defeating #surveillancecapitalism. In that totally uneven fight, fundamental ideas such as those embedded in #atproto and #activitypub protocols (and maybe others not yet gifted with a hashtag) must be explored as fast as possible and as deeply as possible.

1/

The argument about limited #decentralization in the atproto universe is entirely valid. The folks behind #eurosky try to raise money through donations to take it to the next level. We need to see things play out.

The real question is: what end state wins over bigtech? Decentralization does not mean everybody #selfhosting every possible service. While standing up the atproto machinery is more expensive, its another weapon, there could be thousands of orgs and communities that can do it.

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@openrisk it might be that for a lot of people what BlueSky represents is capitalists cosplaying at open protocols and open networks.

They're maybe another weapon, but one that will shoot us in the foot just as soon as their crypto investors demand it.

@mariusor its an open protocol. People can try it and ditch it if it doesnt serve the core objective. Remember the internet protocol itself originated in US military circles.

The dependence on how things originated *is* important (e.g., atproto does make different tradeoffs than activitypub) but this influence dilutes if other communities fund further evolution, different applications etc.

@mariusor the areas where the bluesky team have spent a lot of time (and funding) is mostly around the "scale" problem. Social network protocols that can (theoretically) serve massive numbers of people. They made some choices in this regard and there are counter-opinions - but hardly a consensus. NB: The fediverse has not solved the scaling problem either. I don't belong to the group of people that says its ok if it never grows larger, if billions of people remain trapped in surveillance adtech.

@openrisk I don't feel like you added any counterpoints to my arguments.

I was trying to say that when profit is involved the incentives of the social media institution are antithetical to the ones of its users. "Scale" is something that a true open network does not need to the same extent as a centralized one does. Open and federated network nodes care little about the number of users they have individually because they can be explored in aggregate.

I don't think BlueSky has, or will have, a business model in which they can sustain themselves without taking advantage of their users, either through ads, selling their data, or other capitalist methods.

@openrisk that's why my knee jerk reaction against any company that touts itself as open and federated, but it's still profit driven, is reservation and mistrust.

@openrisk btw, that also includes Mastodon GmbH.

@mariusor I am trying to say that business models and profits may, or may, not have something to do with fundamental technical choices. There is nothing preventing a large non-profit entity to setup such infrastructure. This has been discussed here some time ago, from memory it would take Wikipedia level funding. Ok, what's so impossible about that.

Anyways, been around the fediverse since 2014. It's stagnating while the cancer expands. I don't think much of purist ideology that doesn't deliver

> I don't think much of purist ideology that doesn't deliver

@openrisk I'm doing my best, my dude, I'm doing my best... And so are many others.

@mariusor I'm curious to learn about the problems you see with Mastodon GmbH. I hope I can help clarify. @openrisk

@mariusor

> I don't think BlueSky has, or will have, a business model...

To be fair, I don't think most people building on top of their protocol expect anything what. The way I look at it, they're racing to build up the independent infrastructure before the inevitable enshittification.

Maybe you've already seen https://atp.fyi/network?

With Bluesky's funding, the community still has years to figure this all out.

@openrisk

@mariusor And mind you, hosting the ATProto infrastructure will get cheaper.

Stefan Bohacek (@stefan@stefanbohacek.online)

Arguing whether Bluesky is "really" decentralized is increasingly becoming a moot point. "full-network atproto relay on a $4.20/mo VPS" https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u Running a PDS on a Raspberry Pi. https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-12-02-run-a-bluesky-pds-from-home/ "A Bluesky appview focused on low resource consumption" https://github.com/alnkesq/AppViewLite "full-scale indie atproto relay [...] $30 CAD/mo" https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3lne2wvr5hc2b #bluesky #fediverse

Stefan's Personal Mastodon Server (stefanbohacek.online)

@openrisk

@mellifluousbox they are not taking seriously their role as flagship ActivityPub project, and from the large amount of money they just received, zero of it will go into fixing their flawed ActivityPub implementation.

They are de facto isolating any ActivityPub implementation that obeys the specification and uses features that Mastodon's does not support.

They are Embracing, Extending, and I'm afraid, on their way to Extinguishing the protocol as it was published by W3C in favour of the quirky Mastodon version.

@openrisk

@stefan so if the
enshittification is inevitable, maybe people can be allowed the schadenfreude @openrisk was talking about in the OP.

@mariusor Fair enough.

I just think there's a lot of people genuinely trying to build independent infrastructure for social media not dependent on billionaires. And some of them think ATProto is more suitable for that.

And that includes Blacksky. Maybe if the fediverse was just a bit more friendly, they'd be trying to do that here.

@openrisk

@stefan despite what I've said above, I'm not a hater.

I wish the black sky developers and everyone else that isn't paid by cryptocurrency money, good luck in achieving all of their goals.

@openrisk

@mariusor I assume you're referring to the contract we've entered with @sovtechfund - to clarify: this money has actually not been received, we need to earn it by delivering the proposed work packages. We are now a member of the @w3c and are actively contributing to the reinstated working group (and community group). I don't understand what interest we would have in Extinguishing the protocol (I can assure you it's not the case). Hope this helps.

@openrisk

@mellifluousbox then please dedicate man power to compatibility tickets. The one that bugs me the most is this one I opened **3 years ago**: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/25588

@sovtechfund @w3c @openrisk

@mariusor Will have a look - thanks for bringing this to my attention. The amount of years an issue is open is unfortunately almost meaningless given Mastodon's team size, project reach, and product complexity. @sovtechfund @w3c @openrisk