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Comment on Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet

zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

I think that it’s fair to want the interviewer to ask more critical questions and in general be more precise with their phrasing but

repeat that PR talking point

is a very cynical and uncharitable take on bluesky and decentralization. Cynical takes aren’t necessarily wrong but they’re not necessarily correct either.

The AT protocol is by its own account an ongoing project with problems that still need be solved before it is able to provide a social network with all the properties that they’re interested in.

I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized. One reason for this is that it’s prohibitively expensive to self-host relays. This is something that the AT protocol devs have plans for addressing, so it’s possible that this de-facto centralization is a temporary stage in the evolution of bluesky and AT proto.

It is of course possible that they are lying or that they will be unsuccessful despite best intentions but taking for granted that it’s just a “PR talking point” is, once again, very cynical in a way that I don’t think is completely motivated.

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cygnus@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

I don’t think that it’s accurate to say that bluesky is “completely” centralized (it is less centralized than most social media) as much as it’s de-facto centralized.

That’s like me calling myself a millionaire because I could theoretically be one at some point in the future. I am de facto not a millionaire, but I also have more than zero dollars. so I’m not completely a non-millionaire.

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- zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  So first of, the part of my comment that you quoted doesn’t make sense because what I’m saying is that bluesky theoretically allows for decentralized relays but it’s impractical in practice. Your analogy doesn’t really apply to that.
  
  I do think that it’s misleading to call bluesky decentralized today (at least without any caveats). The goal of the project however is to eventually create a more meaningfully decentralized social network and they have tangible plans for moving in that direction so I think it’s unfair to dismiss this aspect of bluesky completely.
  
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  - cygnus@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    If they do achieve decentralization in the future I’ll gladly call it decentralized, but “tangible plans” don’t warrant use of a descriptor like that. If someone is training in the hope of making their country’s Olympics team they don’t get to call themselves an Olympian. You have to have gone to the Olympics to justify that title. Working towards decentralization is the same thing. You don’t get to call yourself decentralized just because you wrote it down as a goal on your roadmap.
    
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    zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I agree that the interviewer shouldn’t have implied that they are decentralized today! I don’t know if bluesky even say that they are decentralized themselves, on their website it says that they’re “building an open foundation for the social internet” which is more accurate but maybe they mischaracterize themselves somewhere else.
    
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andrewrgross@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I want to second this, and go further with a hot take: I liked Graber’s answers a lot.

I think skepticism of her and the entire artifice of VC and big tech is totally warranted. But a lot of people in this section seem to basically say, ‘no matter what she says I don’t trust her and I’m certain that BlueSky will be another bad actor.’ And I think that’s an overly simplistic take.

It’s true that there are no trustworthy CEOs. You shouldn’t trust Graber. It will always be a mistake to pin hopes of good management of a platform on the magnanimity of any business leader. However if we want to see a new era of decentralization but are honest about the fact that most users are more likely to join big, corporate-styled platforms (in the short term, at least) then the ideal platform is one that attempts to build their business model around portability.

It’s totally true that BlueSky isn’t there yet. But they’re basically building a set of escape hatches for users. Cory Doctorow talks a lot about how restricting users from leaving a platform is a key requirement to enshitify. So if BlueSky uses a protocol that at least has the potential for this, they’re creating an incentive structure that really does serve a purpose. They may later on try to reverse course. But at least for now, they’re doing the thing that gives users and the third party developers the best chance of escape if things go bad. And that is exactly what I want to see from a big tech platform.

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- zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Yeah I in general think that Graber is very good at giving good answers in interviews!
  
  Honestly even if bluesky does become enshittyfied, which is a very real possibility, the work they’ve done on AT proto so far will probably be extremely useful for whoever takes a crack at a more decentralized internet next. There are a lot of clearly smart and passionate people who are given space to research and experiment with different ways of doing things and I think that’s both very valuable and interesting
  
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