Mastodawn

Elena Rossini ⁂2d ago

Can you imagine Mastodon raising 100 MILLION dollars from a crypto VC fund and failing to disclose it... for a full year? No I can't either.

And from their actual press release: "The Atmosphere currently contains about 20 billion public records—the posts, likes, comments and other interactions that bring the ecosystem to life. It's an astonishing collection of what open social infrastructure makes possible."

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

How I read it: data harvesting at its finest 💁‍♀️

Bluesky's 2025 $100M Series B Lays Foundation for Open Social Web - Bluesky

In April 2025, Bluesky raised $100 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Crypto. Since our Series A, we've grown from 13 million to over 43 million global users.

Bluesky

@_elena are you aware that any record is public on atproto and checkable on pds.ls? there's nothing new .....

Elena Rossini ⁂2d ago

@mat sure but it's the language they used that creeped me out - it's like they are using this as a selling point for VCs to say: here, collect all these data

@_elena permissive data/spaces is coming this year, and you can use E2EE messaging germ using your pds. if you want to delete any data, you can just connect to pds.ls and delete any record you want (e.g. all your likes, comments, etc)

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

if you post a public message, someone can ingest that message. there's no protection in what you're citing

(for the record, no such protection on public mastodon messages either)

you're claiming a protection that does not exist

bluesky is a capitalist endeavour funded by cryptobros, while mastodon is not. bluesky has a financial incentive to do quiet seedy things behind the scenes with your data mastodon does not. any secrecy like elena cites is a warning you should heed

Elena Rossini ⁂2d ago

@benroyce @mat tangentially related but I'm beginning to think that maybe the whole point of the ATmosphere being open is to find a way to capture billions of data points for profiling / monetization purposes? I know everything is public here too, but the language of their press release gave me the creeps.

I may start referring to them as Blue$ky and the ATmo$phere.

I mean what's the draw otherwise for VCs and crypto bros?

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

if a message is public, it's public. people need to understand anyone can scrape you, on any protocol

but there is a difference between the fediverse which has no financial motivations, and bluesky, which does have creepy financial motivations. they can, and will, eventually, simply as a matter of the inevitable financial imperative of seedy cryptobro creeps, to do things with your data *on the inside*

(private messages, linking it with data in other plutocrat silos, etc)

Isn't there also something about the idea of the ATProto ID that it should follow you across the web, making tracking across services easier? On the fediverse we have accounts that are separate, and tracking the same user across the internet remains a significant challenge.

This seems to me to be the real problem BS sought to solve.
@benroyce @_elena @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@sab @_elena @mat

Yup

"I want to post some shit on social media with an anime profile picture" is perfectly cromulent and so who gives a fuck about DID

The same with the "your messages are portable!" bit the bluesky cringe crew keep enthusing about

Oh yeah, the meme I posted about the Oppenheimer movie 2 years ago is an extremely important record I must preserve for all posterity

2 weeks later, no one gives a shit about your posts

Social media is ephemeral nonsense, not a doctoral thesis

@benroyce atproto is way more than a protocol for microblogging. messages aren't the only data our pds stores. it can log all the movies/tvshows we watched, all of our blogs, music history, rss feeds, encrypted messages, games, etc can be stored out there

I think you're criticizing atproto without being aware of how powerful it is. bluesky is just a brick of atproto, just like mastodon is just a brick of activitypub

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @sab @_elena

You sound like a cryptobro with your endless enthusiasm for an exciting future while utterly ignoring the pathetic present. Correct: mastodon is just one brick... in an entire house. While bluesky is one brick... oh wait it's the only brick, there's no house, there's no decentralized reality. Just endless cryptobro style salesmanship

@benroyce I'm only talking about the protocol since the beginning, nothing of what I'm saying is about crypto

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @sab @_elena

The way crypto works is people fall for this exciting salesmanship of an exciting future and then... nothing

Bluesky was started by, is run by, is funded by, and owned by, cryptobros

So they deploy the same bullshit con job

"It's decentralized!"

Except it isn't

Lies and a seedy sales job, and unfortunately lots of dum dums fall for it

Who trusts this endless hype shit? Where does it lead?

To a rugpull

@benroyce @mat @sab @_elena
I wonder if anyone checked proton wallet. What’s it for, really?

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@beastfellow @mat @sab @_elena

bitcoin

everything crypto touches rots

I think this is crucial for understanding what they're trying to do with Bluesky. It's not necessarily about monetizing microblogging per se, but about getting DIDs on every platform all over the web. Whether they'll succeed is beyond the point - I pray they won't. But if they do it's very easy to see the monetizing potential.
@mat @benroyce @_elena

@sab very interesting, I haven't thought about that. it's pretty invisible for any user

@benroyce @_elena

@sab @benroyce @_elena @mat
The less possible tracking the better, seems to me.

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

I've been feeling this way myself. A lot of what ATProto does well can be implemented in the fediverse, from what I've been reading, there's just not enough funding to get it done fast enough.

@stefan frankly I don't think that migrating from URLs to DIDs as identifiers would still qualify as the same protocol in the case of ActivityPub.

So, if ActivityPub is the main component of the Fediverse - which it is for me - I don't think we'll be able to reproduce _all_ the functionality ATProto has.

@_elena @benroyce @mat

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

Right, I didn't say all of it, so I don't disagree. But we can definitely fix all the major issues people have with the fediverse in some way.

@_elena @benroyce @mat

Bolet modo Sombrero de paja 🏴‍☠️

yeah actually the concept of DID as decentralized identifiers can have its equivalent in the Portable Objects Proposal described here: https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/ef61/fep-ef61.md

This is just more complex to do in an ecosystem like the fediverse where implementations are (and have been for a long time) less standarized

fep/fep/ef61/fep-ef61.md at main

fep - Fediverse Enhancement Proposals

Codeberg.org

@javascript I thought I was pretty clear in my initial statement: if DIDs are used as primary identifiers for objects, the resulting specification is no longer ActivityPub.

Unless the SocialCG comes up with ActivityPub 2.0 that has DID as identifiers, I wouldn't call the implementations that use that FEP as ActivityPub compliant.

@_elena @benroyce @stefan @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mariusor @stefan @_elena @mat

mastodon was playing around with DIDs at some point

you can find references to it in the documentation (deprecated now for a long time)

example:

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/entities/IdentityProof/

not sure why they abandoned it

maybe because DID just isn't there yet

IdentityProof - Mastodon documentation

Represents a proof from an external identity provider.

@benroyce I wasn't speaking of Mastodon because they barely do any effort into being a spec compliant ActivityPub service...

@stefan @_elena @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mariusor @stefan @_elena @mat

not in an effort to start a fight but just divulging my honest views on the topic:

so fucking what

just build shit

the spec can follow behind later

waiting for perfect spec structuring before doing anything is an exercise in inertia

@benroyce maybe you want to look through my post history before giving me advice to build shit. I'm not speaking from a point of ignorance.

The reason why some of us are trying to stick to the specification is to maximize compatibility between implementations. Each project adding their little flavour of functionality before even bothering to have a solid common foundation is detrimental to the health of the ecosystem as a whole.

@stefan @_elena @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mariusor @stefan @_elena @mat

i don't give a shit about your post history. i have no doubt you're quite knowledgeable and i don't think you're ignorant at all

but i think "stick to the spec" is purposeful impotence

just build shit and fuck the spec. the spec can follow along later, and if a feature is useful and popular, other projects can copy it

nevermind that demanding spec authority in a decentralized system is a fool's errand

just do whatever the fuck you want, fuck specs

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

And I really believe that Bluesky got ahead because it's been essentially a centralized Twitter 2.0, only now slowly starting to open up, and that's already creating UX problems people have been complaining about with Mastodon/fediverse.

Here's a random post: https://witchsky.app/profile/did:plc:rtf3bjc3w2yn4syxtm4r7jt2/post/3mfrp6tovy22g

Try replying from https://bsky.app. The old "put the URL in the search box" trick doesn't work here.

And developers are disagreeing over "log in with Bluesky" vs "with ATProto" vs "Atmosphere", because the first one erases the diversity of the network, while the more accurate labels are "too confusing for normies".

Plus, "pick a PDS and an AppView and an app" sounds a lot more daunting than "pick a server".

Ronen Tamari (@ronentk.me)

Can everyone building on atproto please answer this question? 😇 ↘️ quoting Pedro Vezza (@pedro.vza.net): Why did you decide to bet on atproto over Mastodon or similar?

Witchsky

@stefan I don't understand what your issue is, you want to reply to this post with your bsky handle? just log into witchsky with your bsky identity

https://witchsky.app/profile/did:plc:rtf3bjc3w2yn4syxtm4r7jt2/post/3mfrp6tovy22g

it's also way easier to switch from pds/appview as it's way more modular than a mastodon instance, you can connect into any appview regardless of where your pds is. you can also change your pds hosting very easily and keeping all of your existing data from any service

@_elena @benroyce

Ronen Tamari (@ronentk.me)

Can everyone building on atproto please answer this question? 😇 ↘️ quoting Pedro Vezza (@pedro.vza.net): Why did you decide to bet on atproto over Mastodon or similar?

Witchsky

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

mat are you a salesman or something?

why are you trying to sell us on an exciting future that someday might happen, when we already have it right here on mastodon as the current reality?

@benroyce why would you run your own appview for yourself only? there's already dozens of alternatives (anisota, blacksky, reddwarf, witchsky, blacksky, deer.aylac.top...), aether os, tokimeki...

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

"are you a salesman?"

{replies with shit salesspeak}

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@mat Not to speak for @benroyce, but personally, I like having full control over my web presence. That includes my personal website, blog, and social media.

Super easy to do with WordPress + Mastodon.

@stefan actually you can host an appview for 10-20€/month, it all depends on how much data you want to federate with. just like a mastodon federation, it doesn't make sense to store the integrality of the bsky app view (+18To), you can just host the last 2 weeks of the bluesky activity or just 500go/1to and have the same user experience as the bluesky centralized one

@benroyce @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

right so you hand control to plutocrat assholes who do have the money for that

you're accepting centralization, while trying to sell decentralization, so you're a seedy lying conman/ salesman or you're incoherent and don't even think about what you're saying

@benroyce what's the difference between an appview hosting a part of the bluesky activity and a mastodon instance storing a part of every mastodon activity ?

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

because if a mastodon server goes down, nobody cares, everything still works

but if a centralized piece of bluesky plumbing goes down, everyone is fucked

@benroyce do you even know how atproto works ? if bluesky goes down, I still can log into blacksky or any other appview

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

potentially

always in the future, never the current reality

@benroyce you can't access it because it has been suspended at the pds level. it can't exist if you self host your pds. if someone from bluesky ban the user from the appview, the other app views can see the suspended account

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 1d ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

Can I ask you a question?

The top post was about shady crypto shit infecting bluesky

And you come in like a used car salesman and haven't stopped once over a dozen comments

We don't care dude

We get it that you don't look at or consider downsides and everything about bluesky for you is rainbows and unicorns and bluesky is literally Jesus

But why?

Why are you here with this empty plastic mindless salesman shit?

@benroyce are we were talking that the "public" data isn't the only repo

you dumb or what? you're spinning around and personally attack me treating me as a crypto bro blablabla bluesky shit

you're saying wrong things about atproto, so I explain to you how the protocol works and why the account you see is unavailable on both blacksky and bluesky and still the only thing you can do is being rude and yelling blablabla crypto bro bluesky shit, idk give real arguments

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 9h ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

Yes

Because I don't respect you

The thread is about crypto infecting bluesky and you come into it wanting to play used car salesman. Why? Nobody fucking cares. Why are you even here? Go to bluesky and masturbate your bluesky dreams. What about this thread convinced you this was the place to do that

@benroyce you litterally are a nazi about the way you treat people who don’t think the same way as you do

@stefan @_elena

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 56m ago

@mat @stefan @_elena

that's very intelligent of you mat. i dislike your used car salesman routine with bluesky... therefore, i am literally a proponent of nazi ideology. wow. stunning insight. that's quite perceptive of you mat. you are a very smart person

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

Yeah, I get that, and that does sound kind of promising.

For now, I'm choosing to stick with the fediverse. I much prefer that it's grassroots and not funded by crypto money. I'm optimistic that we'll address the shortcomings in time.

@benroyce @_elena

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@mat Not much of an issue on my end, rather, try convincing a few million people that logging into random websites just to reply to or like a post is a safe and fine thing to do.

But don't take my word for it, let's see how this all look once there are more independent ATProto communities.

We're still very much in the early days.

@_elena @benroyce

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@stefan @mat @_elena

All the complaints people have about mastodon being decentralized and "difficult" evaporate when bluesky, which is fake decentralized, finally tries to become real decentralized, and then it's the same or worse levels of difficulty

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@benroyce Yeah, honestly, this is why I don't get into these "is Bluesky really decentralized?" debates.

Arguably, people are making a lot of progress.

Have you seen this?

https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/116126040489956521

Yes, we're very much in the very early days, in practical terms you could argue Bluesky is very much still "centralized", but it's starting to change.

Best to accept that, and prepare for how things will actually look when this gets meaningful traction, because, as you said, fediverse may actually get advantage by already having some of these issues resolved by then.

@benroyce @stefan @mat @_elena the typical conversation experienced people have when someone inexperienced challenges their experience: "Did you try it yourself?" - "No!" - "Please, shut up!"

@stefan @_elena @benroyce @mat

Telling how one of the answers is about being able to monetize on the user end (« Culture problems w/ ActivityPub/Mastodon on a number of levels. Seemed openly hostile to anyone potentially making money, even small biz »). That’s a feature, not a bug as far as I’m concerned :)

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@sknob Honestly, being hostile to people who are just trying to make living doesn't feel like a feature.

I make music as a hobby, but if I was trying to promote an album or a show, and got harassed off the fediverse for that, I'd just have to stick with commercial social media, I guess.

@_elena @benroyce @mat

@stefan @_elena @benroyce @mat

A lot of people promote their DIY arts and crafts on the fedi, including me, and I think that’s fine. It’s still not a cool place for businesses to aggressively advertise and sell their wares, and I think it’s more than nice to have a place that is essentially free from consumer culture.

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@sknob I've seen pretty regular folks being harassed over this, including prominent YouTubers.

Yeah, we don't want ads and sleazy SEO-type guys, that's fine, although, even then, why not just block and move on, rather than harass people?

@_elena @benroyce @mat