I've been doing some research on #bluesky, nothing too deep. It piques my interest that they're trying to stand up an entire new federated protocol rather than just use (or even extend) ActivityPub. Not only does this make them incompatible with the Fediverse, it stands them in opposition to it with their own Fediverse-of-one. Remains to be seen if they'll be the VHS or the Betamax of this war.
@uniquitous @rolle being the VHS or betamax of the war means that either way, they will be rendered completely obsolete by the NEXT social networking and microblogging status update platform, too ;)
Why did they decide not to be part of the fediverse?
@RogueLodge @hakirsch @rolle A very good question. If you take them at face value, they have issues with parts of the ActivityPub standard and think they can do better. If that's true, then fair play and godspeed.
My suspicion, however, is that Jack being a billionaire techbro wants more control and/or more prestige and so he wants a protocol of his own that favors his objectives. Not sure if there are any factual grounds for that but I think distrust is the correct default response to billionaires.
@uniquitous @RogueLodge @hakirsch Here's the direct answer: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/issues/255#issuecomment-1287953987
Yes, they want more control. I personally think portability is just an excuse. I'm not holding my breath about them allowing people to 100% install BlueSky server on their server, it's against their business model.
About the meta discussion, he's right about #Fediverse being "suspicious of Bluesky". They haven't given much reason not to be.
@rolle @RogueLodge @hakirsch @volkris I think the "meta" block in that one person's post sums it up pretty well. I'd much rather cast my lot with the open source community working independently, than with a money-backed effort that just happens to have open sourced what they're working on. I think it's a mistake to jump from one billionaire controlled environment to another and expect anything to be different. I understand that they're creating a new protocol that can be used in a federated way, but a protocol is such a bedrock foundation to everything built upon it that I can't help but be really suspicious of what Jack & co might build in to subvert control of everything that uses it.
All that said, someone's gonna win. A social media platform is nothing without a community, which will build up around the talent people want to see & hear from. So wherever they go, there we will inevitably follow.
@uniquitous @rolle @hakirsch @volkris
this is very wise. Also I'm starting to really think the Open Source is the way to go with most long term things after using so many google products that were cancelled, after seeing corporate buyouts ruin platforms, open source is at least a lot more stable, and that's important.
Well one little detail to keep in mind is the difference between an open source software package versus the operation of software.
For example, bad people operating open source software is still going to be a bad situation.
@RogueLodge @volkris @rolle @hakirsch
That's always a risk; and many an open source project has faded into abandonware. The good side of that is that anyone can fork a repo and begin the effort anew. The open source world is a little rough around the edges, but I think that gives it character. And when people pull together it really shines.
@volkris @uniquitous @rolle @hakirsch Ah yeah. That's very true. Its just my lifetime experience is that doesn't happen as much with OS as it does with other stuff - but I guess I do remember reading all of the madness that went on with BBS servers and nowadays telegram and discord where power-hungry people take over and control the conversation.