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 @jaredwhite To be fair, it is possible to host all of the ATProto infrastructure for much cheaper with the same trade-offs as with a fediverse server, where you get an incomplete view of the network.
@_elena @jaredwhite That is, with one exception.
Apparently the built-in DMs are stored off-protocol on Bluesky's servers. So, yeah.
(But they are apparently working on that.)
Elena Rossini ⁂
Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊)
Stefan Bohacek