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

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
Show threadmat 2d ago
@_elena are you aware that any record is public on atproto and checkable on pds.ls? there's nothing new .....
Show threadElena 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
Show threadmat 2d ago
@_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)
Show threadᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES2d ago

@mat @_elena

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

Show threadElena 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?

Show threadStefan Bohacek2d ago

@_elena

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.

@benroyce @mat

Show threadmarius2d ago

@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

Show threadᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES2d 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.

Show threadmarius2d ago

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

@stefan @_elena @mat

Show threadᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES2d 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

Show threadmarius

@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

Mar 20 at 12:55pmWeb
Show threadᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES2d 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