With the news of the secret $100 million investment in Bluesky by Bain, I keep thinking about protocols.
Maybe the perceived "drawbacks" of #ActivityPub are ultimately strengths?
#ATproto handles identity in a way that allows a single sign-in across apps. But wouldn't this make it easier to profile you? Is this why crypto VCs are so attracted to it?
And ATproto has funding in the 100s of millions by VCs but at some point they'll want to turn a profit. There is ZERO pressure here to ensh*tt*fy
@_elena I keep asking for this "decentralized" protocol to help me move off of all infrastructure controlled by the Bluesky corporation, and I keep getting the answer "well…so…uh…actually…"
Unfortunately I'm not waiting around for the "exit from evil billionaire control" scenario Jay Graber talked about a year ago or whatever, because that's already happened. So if I can't use ATProto without Bluesky, I guess I won't use ATProto. 🤷🏻♂️
@jaredwhite I noticed your posts Jared… and I was following with curiosity the replies. It doesn’t look good.
What worries me is that here in Europe advocacy for the open social web groups the two protocols together (ATProto and ActivityPub).
Also: European politicians and media organizations are gravitating towards Bluesky / ATproto and mostly ignoring the Fediverse…
@_elena Well…I would say it's "complicated".
I could envision a world where every major country or socioeconomic region has its own ATProto-based social network, because they have the resources to run that kind of infrastructure at scale. Not saying I like the idea, but that seems to be how ATProto was structured. Several *large enterprises* could run services which interoperate.
That's quite different from ActivityPub where you can run a decent social networking instance off a Raspberry Pi. 😄
@jaredwhite totally. BTW did you get an answer to your question yesterday?
I also wonder if there are ATProto equivalents to Phanpy or masto-fe... you know, web clients that allow you to log in with your credentials instead of going to bsky.app
@_elena Sounds like there are some potential destinations in development, but nothing has become fully baked yet apart from Blacksky.
I already use a custom frontend to Bluesky called Klearsky…I can't actually log into the Bluesky web app at all. Somehow I got caught up in their age verification requirements, even though I'm based in Oregon. 🤷🏻♂️
Elena Rossini ⁂
Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊)