Mastodawn

Bluesky Reveals Massive Hidden Investment

Today #Bluesky revealed that in April 2025 they received a whopping $100M venture capital investment lead by Bain Capital Crypto and that they KEPT IT A SECRET.

https://bsky.social/about/blog/03-19-2026-series-b

So the answer to the big mystery Who Owns Bluesky? (https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/116025246450023071) is finally out. Crypto VCs.

Now, we should be asking why did this company that prides itself on transparency and "decentralization" decide they needed to hide who owned the company?

Show thread

Nazo

@mastodonmigration I truly can't understand why so many are so willing to trust Bluesky to not be exactly like the things they left for exactly the reasons they left those things...

As far as I could ever see, right from day one it was built to just be the thing that takes people from those so it can do the same thing all over again... Like that was its clear goal...

So it will just hurt them and then something else, say Greensky, will pop up and they'll go to that and it will just do the same thing.

Show thread

Duncan Bayne 3d ago

@nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration I find myself confused in the same way by geeks who fled Windows ... for macOS.

Show thread

Nazo 3d ago

@duncan_bayne @mastodonmigration People put Apple on a pedestal so high they can't see what Apple is doing up there.

And it's a pedestal that Apple never really truly deserved... (Oh, maybe very early on when going up against IBM and IBM's ways, but still, most of the pedestal consists of just some very very effective marketing...)

Show thread

Cassandrich 3d ago

@duncan_bayne @nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration Ubuntu would be a better analogy.

Show thread

Duncan Bayne 3d ago

@dalias @nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration Oh? I mean Ubuntu wouldn't be my first choice but I still see it as being head and shoulders above either macOS or Windows

Show thread

Cassandrich 3d ago

@duncan_bayne @nazokiyoubinbou @mastodonmigration Right, but MacOS never pretended to be open or an alternative to the things people were fleeing from Microsoft. Ubuntu is the analogy because it rides on the story of Linux as liberating, but with capitalism.

Show thread

Nazo 3d ago

@dalias @duncan_bayne @mastodonmigration Apple does kind of pretend at openness. Oh they don't pretend to be FLOSS of course, but they created a walled garden and trick people into thinking it's wide open — right up until someone finds out they can't log into their account because of a bad gift card and everything they had in there is inaccessible...

Ubuntu actually is pretty open for all that it's so corporate. The fact Mint could be built on it kind of says they haven't really fully reached the Bluesky level of centralization and closedness.

Well, perhaps there isn't really an ideal metaphor, but the way people put Apple up on that pedestal as the perfect alternative really makes me feel like it comes darned close.