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. 😄
You can run some of the ATProto infrastructure on a Raspberry Pi as well, with some of the same trade-offs we have here, like not having the full network view.
https://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/116126040489956521
Not really trying to advocate for the Atmosphere here, mind you, but there is quite a lot of momentum over there.
And there is definitely progress, even if it's slow. A bit like here.
Well there are the people working at Bluesky the company (doesn't seem to be my crowd either) and then there's the development community trying to make the Atmosphere independent from them.
Not super familiar with the second group, other than folks I already know from here, but I do give them some benefit of doubt.
I mean, some of them are doing some interesting stuff, and again, trying to create independence from Bluesky the company. And that's quite commendable.
Yeah, I'd prefer to see them put in the effort here, but fediverse development is arguably more challenging, and with a smaller and less diverse userbase, probably less rewarding.
@stefan @coreysnipes @_elena Sure, there's a distinction between the corp and the folks working on the side on indie flavorings.
But it feels way too much like another Swift story to me (all attempts by non-Apple players to make Swift a great language ecosystem apart from Apple have largely fallen by the wayside… a shame really, because Swift is a pretty cool language).
@jaredwhite Yes, I think that's the big question, whether the larger Atmosphere will survive Bluesky's inevitable enshittification. A year ago, I would've said, probably not.
Today, I don't know. Maybe?
Elena Rossini ⁂
Jared White (ResistanceNet ✊)
Stefan Bohacek
Corey Snipes 🌱