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?

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 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 @_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

@stefan sure, but the guy I quoted talked about people being « openly hostile », which I didn’t interpret as harassment necessarily. I mean I would say I am openly hostile if that guy asked me what I thought, but I wouldn’t harass him :)
@_elena @benroyce @mat

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@sknob I've seen/read about that sort of behavior on here, so really mainly referring to that.

And there is a lot of gatekeeping, people looking down on those who are not tech savvy enough or intimidated by some of the complexities of how fediverse works.

Really not a fan of that.

(Not saying this applies to you, just a general comment!)

@_elena @benroyce @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@stefan @sknob @_elena @mat

right but all these hostile sorts are just candidates for blocking, or suspending entire servers if it is riddled with this gatekeeping shit

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

@benroyce Yes, but telling people "just block everyone" gets tiring after a certain point, and we all have a different threshold.

This is why we need to:

a) implement reply controls, and
b) fix the culture here

Honestly, rather than telling people "block the harassers", we need to teach people to block/ignore those they feel like harassing.

See also my semi-serious, only-joking-unless proposal: https://static.stefanbohacek.com/mansplaining/

@sknob @_elena @mat

Replying on social media

How to reply to a stranger online without being a total jerk.

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@stefan @sknob @_elena @mat

yeah but that's a nonproblem not in the sense that it isn't a problem, but since bluesky has the same problem, or any other social media for that matter, that's just the way it is

there's always going to be trolls, harassment, gatekeepers, etc

but 1,000% agreed on the reply controls

Stefan Bohacek 2d ago

This focuses on the anti-Black racism, but highly recommend reading, if you haven't already:

https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/115995510270880689

But yes, you are right that these issues are not unique to the fediverse. Mekka explains really well why people still prefer being elsewhere.

@sknob @_elena @mat

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@stefan @sknob @_elena @mat

yeah we had this convo before, and i totally agree with mekka's critique

bigots, always ruining everything

ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIES 2d ago

@stefan @sknob @_elena @mat

i think the way to handle that is to bake it in to your presence, make it part of your identity that you engaged in commerce

people need to eat

if someone else has no financial worries, good for them, but it's entitled to weaponize that against you

some parts of mastodon will be hostile to you, some won't. so you simply block the hostile parts, and they block you, and everyone carries on