For this reason, @spritely's tech looks like it's very focused on computer science'y low-level BS, but that's actually because it's *too hard to build the systems I want right now on top of current technology*, we need stronger foundations

But people have to build for today too

Let's leave the ocap stuff to the side for now, then. Let's focus on what Bluesky and the fediverse have to learn from each other.

- The fediverse should adopt content-addressed storage and decentralized identity
- Bluesky should adopt real, actual federation and decentralization

For this reason @blaine says of both ActivityPub done right and Bluesky done right, "they're the same picture" (The Office meme goes here, yes)

To a large degree, I think @blaine is right

Of course, adapting an existing system as deployed isn't easy.

I will say though that I think if Bluesky were to become *actually decentralized* it would look a lot like ActivityPub in terms of having directed messaging. This will also introduce similar challenges around eg replies, etc.

To the end of the fediverse, perhaps I sound bitter, "they didn't adopt ActivityPub the way *I* saw it!"

The truth is that Mastodon didn't, but Mastodon also saved ActivityPub. It then painted a vision of the future that wasn't, at least, what Jessica Tallon and I expected of it. But it saved AP.

The fediverse and Bluesky, at great effort, could learn a lot from each other in the immediate term.

In the longer term, neither is implementing the ocap vision I think is critical for the big vision, and in a way, I think maybe neither can be easily rearchitected to achieve it. Well, not yet.

When I laid out the ideas of OCapPub to various fediverse developers, the response was "this sounds cool but I have *no idea* how to retrofit a Rails/Django app for this kind of actor-oriented design".

And they were right.

Remember when I said Conway's Law flows in both directions?

Conway's Law says that a technical architecture reflects the social structure under which it was built. But the reverse is also true. The social structures *we can have* are made possible by the affordances of the tools we have available.

"Tech problems/social problems": false dichotomy.

It's for that reason that @spritely, while aiming for a *socially collaborative* revolution, is first focusing on a *technical* revolution.

It's too hard to build massively, securely collaborative tools right now. With Spritely's tools, p2p ocap secure tech is the *default output*.

Remember when I said that IMO @jay.bsky.team is the right person to lead Bluesky and that I am sympathetic with many design decisions of Bluesky (even if critical of them for being non-decentralized)?

Bluesky is building what they can for a scale big objective. The tech flows from goals.

So too does the social structure flow from the tech. It does on Bluesky, and it does on the fediverse.

I won't elaborate further on this, I actually would like you to pause and think about it. In which ways are tech and social systems bidirectional, here and otherwise? It's important.

The vision laid out for the fediverse, both independently in my writings and even in Jay Graber and I's joint proposal... well, it's a big lift.

@spritely would like to see if we can retrofit our version onto ActivityPub. Time will tell if that's a separate thing.

And perhaps this is all my *massive* Cassandra complex speaking. I won't deny that I have one, for better or worse

Still, despite all I have said about both Bluesky and the fediverse technically, it is because I want a hopeful direction for all of us. Secure collaboration. More important than ever.

Let's take another tea break. (And another bathroom break. This teacup is massive.) We're getting close to done, I promise. Just two sections left, they're both much shorter.

Then I can finally brave reading my notifications.

Maybe.

== TEA BREAK THE THIRD: BEVERAGE TRIFORCE ==

Hello, I am back again. Did you miss me? I still am not reading notifications.

Help I started writing this summary at 11am and it is now 6pm here I have wasted a whole day of work

But I have tea, and I also flossed my teeth, and it is time to resume this thread. If you are here, you know why.

Before we go any further, earlier I mentioned the US House of Representatives, and here I am giving a MASSIVE content warning for transphobia

But @evangreer is the coolest fucking person for standing up to Rep. Mace at the Project Libery summit https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2024-11-21-transgender-digital-rights-activist-confronts-hate-monger-rep-nancy-mace-at-internet-summit/

What I am trying to say is I don't have many heroes but @evangreer is absolutely a heroine of mine

You should donate to @fight they are some of the only people doing sensible advocacy against terrible internet laws

Also fuck TERFs

But anyway

Also you have reached it: the third secret egg

You have now collected the egg triforce and can defeat Gender Ganon

If you want to

The power was in you all along

But let's continue.

It's time, we have reached the second to last section: "Preparing for the organization as a future adversary."

I love this one because I love that phrase, and the best part is that the Bluesky team came up with it, "the organization is a future adversary". It's genuinely good and self reflective

Occasionally an org creates a phrase like this, and back in the day Google had "Don't be evil"

And yeah, people criticize Google for never having been sincere but it gave an opportunity for people inside and outside the organization to critique Google on its own stated values. That was good.

It was *at least* good insofar as the moment Google retired the phrase as never really meaning anything anyway, as evil as Google may have been before, Google got *noticably* worse.

To Bluesky people internally: keep that phrase going as long as you can, and use it reflectively.

As opposed to Google's "Don't be evil", a commandment for the everpresent, "the organization is a future adversary" acknowledges the realities of the future, that it is uncertain, and in fact, that power-dynamics-wise, there will be pressure to make things worse.

Making design decisions in the present which guard against the future is one of the most important things we can do. It is one of the most important reasons to choose FOSS licenses, for instance, which provide an exit plan and also counterbalance against temptation to enshittify a project.

To this end, Bluesky's goals of "credible exit" are actually very important. It creates a similar pressure for the organization itself to stay true as long as it can, even acknowledging the organization as a future adversary, and actually preparing for it.

I am pro-Bluesky-credible-exit.

And there *will* be a lot of pressure: Bluesky has taken VC money as investments; the pattern of such is that early on, things are very good and flexible, and after some time, the investors start placing pressure to enshittify.

I have seen good peoples' orgs clawed from their hands. It happens.

This happens despite the very best people with the very best intentions. Talk to early Twitter co-founders and they will tell you the org that things became was not the org that they envisioned.

A future adversary indeed. So we should plan for it today.

Before we continue further, I have done about every job imaginable in a FOSS project/organization. Fundraising, by far, is the worst, and the most stressful.

It's incredibly hard to raise anything to do anything. I think that's worth acknowledging.

The structure of an organization does matter. There's a reason that @spritely is a 501(c)(3) in the US. Any money we take in is a donation: we aren't "delivering on an investment" (though we must deliver on *results*)

Bluesky is a Public Benefit Corporation, also interesting

A Public Benefit Corporation has a mission for the public good, but can take investments in the way a nonprofit cannot. This also means it can move much faster. Given the influx of users to Bluesky, taking investments this way may have been the only load handling route available this fast.

Again, this is all tuned to "What is Bluesky trying to build?"

Bluesky might not be a good "decentralized Twitter replacement", but it is a good "Twitter replacement" with the possibility of "credible exit"

That Bluesky is providing needs for many users who are looking for refuge from a white supremacist site *today* is something to pause and acknowledge the difficulty and scope of doing so quickly and in the moment. I'm glad Bluesky is here at this stressful geopolitical moment in history.

There will be a lot of pressure soon from investors: run ads, make premium accounts that do not actually make sense in a decentralized way, so on and so on.

In this way, "credible exit" is the most important thing for Bluesky the organization and its community to push on *today*

What I will *not* accept is the goalposts being moved on decentralization and federation. Bluesky is neither decentralized nor federated.

If Bluesky wants to become so, it has an enormous amount of work to do, particularly in terms of architectural design.

Blogs are decentralized, Google is not.

Bluesky will face every pressure to be enshittified. Bluesky has even, correctly, acknowledged this. It is up to Bluesky and its community to rise to the challenge of "credible exit" knowing that this is a likely, perhaps inevitable, risk.

The org is indeed a future adversary. So what now?

And here it is. We have reached the final part.

I am not even going to take a tea break. I am not even going to go to the bathroom. I kinda have to, but we are powering through.

We have reached the conclusion of this megathread, and "summary" of an equally long article.

I laid out definitions of "decentralization" and "federation", and Bluesky meets neither, without major rearchitecting or moving the goalposts on those terms, which I cannot accept.

However, "credible exit" is a good goal for Bluesky. Bluesky created that term and it's a good and feasible goal.

I laid out a strong critique, but let me end on a call to empathy.

Bluesky is built by good people, and the fediverse is built by good people. Neither reflect the designs I presently would like to see today, but ultimately these are built by humans trying their absolute hardest.

The infrastructure we build reflects our social dynamics, and our social dynamics are made possible by our infrastructure.

This thread has been long, and I have said everything I have to say. Thanks for listening. I hope we can build a good future for each other. 💜