Elena Rossini ⁂11h ago

RE: https://mas.to/@Aubreader/116330793703168577

This article is a must read.

An excerpt: “Why would anyone fund an Atmosphere project if #Bluesky, with $100 million in the bank, might ship a competing feature at any moment? Why would a founder bet their career on this ecosystem? The presentation didn't just hurt Graze. It made the entire ecosystem look unfundable.”

Why do I keep bringing up this topic?

Because #ATproto is often put in the same category as #ActivityPub (“open protocols yay”) but I strongly disagree with that stance

Show threadhamish campbell7h ago
@_elena it's a mess that keeps growing, and we will be left to compost it, too much #techshit, and we all start to stink - why would anyone use the #openweb with that bad smell. The last time this happened was the #encryptionists with the #blockchain mess, there is a big overlap with #bluesky
Show threadElena Rossini ⁂6h ago
@hamishcampbell I'm getting big EEE vibes from Bluesky - I hope my instinct is wrong
Show threadhamish campbell5h ago

@_elena Sadly, it isn’t - and it’s painfully visible. @evan called this right from the start, and he was right on this.

This is #techshit, spreading a miasma over the #openweb. And when it inevitably fails, the rotting stink will linger, making it even harder for people to take the step they need to take.

Show threadEvan Prodromou4h ago

@hamishcampbell @_elena

I see three outcomes for Bluesky:

1. They keep working on opening up the ATmosphere.
2. They try to claw back value from the developer ecosystem (FB and Twitter did this in early 2010s).
3. They run out of money and shut down.

Here, "they" means the current corporate entity or an acquirer. If there's another outcome I'm missing, lmk!

Show threadRob Ricci2h ago

@evan @hamishcampbell @_elena

Since they have $100M in the bank, 3 is probably a way off. AFACT, they are currently doing both 1 and 2 in parallel; if you look at their protocol engineers, I do believe they are really all in on 1, but much of the rest of the company is taking every opportunity to act in a decentralized manner and going in the opposite direction.

Show threadEvan Prodromou

@ricci @hamishcampbell @_elena well, they had $100M when they raised money last year.

Crypto funds love to rollover crypto assets. So maybe some of it was in crypto, like Bitcoin, which has since dropped 25% against USD.

And they've been operating a tech startup with 20-30 staff and dozens of contractors, plus hosting costs which are somewhere in the $20-50M/year range, I'd bet.

If I had to guess on runway for BlueSky today, I'd say 12-24 months.

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