Let’s see here… ahh yes, it’s a company run by a board with a CEO based in Amerika. Who gives a shit if it’s non-profit or not, the users are not in control. No thanks.
Bluesky Is Plotting a Total Takeover of the Social Internet
Submitted 3 days ago by remington@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-jay-graber-bluesky/
Comments
madame_gaymes@programming.dev 3 days ago
Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
It’s also very much not non-profit.
madame_gaymes@programming.dev 3 days ago
You’re right, I guess the original thing by Jack Dorsey (Bluesky Protocol) was non-profit, but since becoming its own entity it is for-profit now. I conflated the two.
They consider themselves a Benefit Corporation, which I just learned is likely for-profit pretending to be socially aware.
heavyboots@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
What I don’t get is why anyone would ever choose commercial social media again given there are Activity Pub clones for practically everything now, where you aren’t the product.
tormeh@discuss.tchncs.de 3 days ago
Try using Mastodon and Bluesky at the same time. Bluesky is a twitter clone and perfect replacement. Mastodon is an excellent micro-blogging platform, but has none of the features people actually liked about twitter. People love recommendation algorithms and quote tweet dunking. That’s the core of what it’s all about. Mastodon is glorified RSS, which is great if you miss those days.
Kache@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Perhaps open federated systems should have recommendation algos too, just optional and open
madjo@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Follow a few interesting hashtags and you have your recommendation algorithm, but one you’re in control of.
clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
fuck people liking shit … and fuck people going back to american corporate tech… yes, I’m mad like that.
heavyboots@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Honestly I have used Blue Sky and Mastodon and Mastodon feels a lot more elegant to me, personally.
melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Fediverse software tends to be kind of hostile to convenience features people have grown accustomed to. Recommendation algorithms, for example. Lemmy is on the cutting edge for having a “Hot” sort.
I know Mastodon has historically been pretty hostile to even more basic things like being able to search posts.
I get why they think like that, and I honestly agree with some of it, but it inevitably creates a culture shock for outsiders coming from corpo media. I think that plus the network effect means the fediverse will always be kind of niche.
60d@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Is Activity Pub integrated into Lemmy yet?
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
I thought it was built on activity pub.
I’m gonna go over to my Mastodon account and try to reply to you. One sec.
Mniot@programming.dev 2 days ago
Commercial software has advertising: people whose job is to advertise it. That means TV and web ads for Bluesky, influencers talking about it. It also means a team of software engineers building parts of the system specifically to draw people in, whereas non-commercial software often rejects that (lack of infinite-scroll on Lemmy’s default UI, for example).
Activity Pub also requires a different mind-set that doesn’t exist elsewhere on the internet today. You need to decide which instance to join, or maybe to host your own instance. But it doesn’t really matter, because you can federate with other instances. But you have to drive some of that federation, so it does matter a little. It’s pretty complex and confusing and its a problem that only exists in this one niche of software.
Bluesky gives you an infinite feed that feels like you’re connected to the entire Internet without you doing any work. I think the AP service are doing really well, considering what they’re up against.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
They just follow the herd. I wonder who directs the herd…
Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 days ago
All the lefties fled to Bluesky following Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. But CEO Jay Graber says the app is for everyone—and could revolutionize how people communicate online.
… but probably not.
Butterbee@beehaw.org 3 days ago
Decentralized app plotting a total takeover of the social internet? Are these tryouts for the mental gymnastics invitational?
AntelopeRoom@lemm.ee 3 days ago
You have mastodon, which actually made a federated social media platform, but which has failed to become mainstream, and Blue sky which became mainstream, but has failed to actually become federated.
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Overall, I like the options today a lot better than what we had 10 or even 5 years ago.
I am glad that both Mastodon and Blue Sky exist. I would like both to be successful.
remington@beehaw.org 3 days ago
I would like both to be successful.
Same
crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
Mastodon didn’t eat the world, but it’s pretty successful. I have a great time over there.
crmsnbleyd@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
The fediverse will still be here when bluesky is killed by VCs
state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
“What are doing today, Jay?”
“The same thing we’re doing every day, Kate. Trying to take over the social internet!”
samus12345@lemm.ee 2 days ago
“Egad, Jay, brilliant! Oh, wait, no, it’s just going to become enshittified like every other centralized platform.”
0xtero@beehaw.org 3 days ago
this is potentially the last social identity you have to create.
…as long as you stay centralized on the central BlueSky instance. Once you move out to a (potential, future) federated server, that identity (and it’s super duper verification) doesn’t follow you.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 days ago
“Today, social media, tomorrow the world! Muahahahaha!”
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Are they building an army with troops, tanks, aircraft and naval ships? Are they going to physically and violently take over the social internet?
Templa@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Y’all are forgetting how hostile Mastodon users can be. I personally I feel a little bit scared of posting anything there.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Normies will be using weibo before they use Mastodon
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Oh no, the twitter people going back to twitter after sold them out. This will end in tears.
jcarax@beehaw.org 3 days ago
Now if only I could get a meaningful reply to a bug preventing complete account deletion, either on github or from support. It seems they modeled their support structure on Google’s.
cygnus@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
I stopped reading when the “journalist” asked this question:
How little research must one do to credulously repeat that PR talking point for a platform that is in fact completely centralized?
some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 3 days ago
I stopped at the bit about revolutionizing communication online. That revolution happened over a decade ago with the rise of social media. More social media is just more, not new.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 days ago
Decentralisation via activitypub is the next revolution
xnx@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Yall are so annoying. Bluesky is 2 years old. Mastodon is like 8 years old. Also theres already another instance and relays running on a raspberry pi.
Yall have such a hate boner you dont even do research. No wonder normies will never use mastodon or lemmy yall are insufferable and mastodon is still just a copy of twitter with no new features
M1ch431@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
We don’t have a hate boner. We see “decentralized” being thrown around like a buzzword and we see that it really doesn’t apply to their platform.
It’s like “Libertarians” taking the word “libertarian” and shifting the meaning to describe their ideology. It’s a distortion of the spirit of the word.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
What new features does Bluesky have…?
30p87@feddit.org 3 days ago
Reddit is now decentralized, I just set up nginx to cache it🤡
Oh wait, PDS’ don’t even cache lol
cygnus@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
Oh yeah? I can join that second server right now and communicate with folks on the main server?
sexy_peach@feddit.org 3 days ago
Do you have a link to the raspi instance?
tyler@programming.dev 3 days ago
Bluesky’s model is built in a way that means it won’t ever be decentralized. There are plenty of articles about it.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Oh, when did twitter add CWs that required a clickthrough? The ability to set your own character limit? When did it remove its algorithms to show you posts it considered relevant? When did it become open source? When did it become decentralised and federated? When did it start working on end-to-end encryption for DMs? When did it allow for built in themes?
melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Do you have a link to people talking about running a relay on a raspberry pi? I find it hard to believe that’s possible. A PDS, sure, but a relay requires multiple terabytes of storage alone and plenty of bandwidth/CPU/RAM that I just don’t see a raspberry pi being able to support.
I’d be curious to hear about any progress on setting up new relays though.
zygo_histo_morpheus@programming.dev 2 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
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.
cygnus@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
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.
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 2 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.