Comment on Be Wary of Bluesky
73ms@sopuli.xyz 2 days agoThis is yet another version of the ridiculous “we’re decentralized in theory” 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.
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
They’re not. I mentioned Blacksky.
As I understand it, the 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.
KentNavalesi@mstdn.social 2 days ago
@JubilantJaguar @73ms
I'll take the "eeewww ugly UI" risk over the "high barriers to decentralization" risk.
73ms@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
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.
JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
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.