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No guarantee they don’t change this when they get bigger and shift from user acquisition to revenue & profitability. Bluesky is VC funded and there’s expectati

No guarantee they don’t change this when they get bigger and shift from user acquisition to revenue & profitability. Bluesky is VC funded and there’s expectations of revenue growth down the line.

mg 3y ago
I have not looked into it very deeply yet, but as I understand the Bluesky project, this would not be as easy for Bluesky as it is for Twitter and Reddit. You can use your own domain as your identity. Even when you use a service like bsky.app, you can use @yourdomain.com as your handle. And switch to any other service to publish under the same handle.
- svnt 3y ago
  I’m not sure how your argument serves as any counter to “VCs invest in companies to make money” except that the shell game may be one deeper in this case.
- mdasen 3y ago
  Anything can restrict traffic. SMTP has no lock-in and you can use your own domain, but Gmail could decide to send all your email to spam. Anything can just start ignoring traffic and not showing content. I remember when Google Talk used XMPP federation. Lots of people ran XMPP servers. Then Google turned off federation and only Google Talk users could chat with other Google Talk users. Unlike email, Bluesky essentially has one service. There's no culture of openness there. It wouldn't be hard for them to decide that they'd become the single service in the future. 99% of users aren't going to leave for a different provider and they could simply black hole stuff from other providers. I'm not saying they want to do that, but saying there's no lock-in is wrong at this point. Bluesky could shut down their ATProto entirely and just close if off and 99.9%+ of users wouldn't notice a thing. Bluesky can only be considered open once there are many other home servers and the Bluesky home server isn't the vast majority of traffic. Let's say it's 2025 and Bluesky has 500M users and there are 10 other servers with 5,000-500,000 users. Let's say one of the alternatives seems like it might be a threat to Bluesky's business model. Bluesky simply stops sending its posts via ATProto and then users on those other servers need to migrate to Bluesky. Total lock-in. Now, if it's 2025 and Bluesky has 50M users, ATProtoX has 100M users, SkyNet has 200M users, SocialSky has 25M users, etc., then it's hard to lock someone in. Bluesky couldn't cut itself off from 85% of the network. Bluesky could cut itself off from 0.001% of the network. Just because Bluesky is using the ATProto today doesn't mean they'll continue to. As long as Bluesky is essentially 100% of the content/users/etc., it's easy for them to pivot away from openness toward lock-in. It's only open if they can't cut others off and as long as they're the source of almost everything on the ATProto, they can always pivot away. Yes, with the ATProto you can move servers. That doesn't mean Bluesky will continue to use ATProto and have openness around posting/viewing content.
  - hoidofyolen 3y ago
    the key thing though is that the data that people post with right now on Bluesky is on ATproto, which can be migrated to another PDS without permission from your current PDS (bsky.social). so if Bluesky tried to defederate you could take your data and fuck off with it to another PDS who supports ATproto and bam, Bluesky can't do anything about it. the only thing keeping lock-in right now is the PLC directory, which I think has plans to be owned by consortium eventually.
    - esmevane 3y ago
      That doesn't seem like a mitigation to what the poster above you said, to me. It just means that if I don't like it, I don't lose my posts when I move. That's nice but it offers no guarantees in the face of a corporate actor harming the overall federation of a network.
      - emptysongglass 3y ago
        You and others in this thread aren't grokking what this means in practice: it means that users are transparently redirected to your new home wherever you are. If a corporate juggernaut tries to harm the network, folks just pick up and move their identity. The protocol bakes in treating the provider like a dumb pipe. The protocol puts the power in the hands of the users and at any time they can just up and walk away, defeating the stickiness of the provider.
        esmevane 3y ago
        No, I definitely get that. Where your data is, or is not, has no relevance to a network member choosing to behave badly or harmfully against that network. Nor does it actually impact what they can do to the network itself. It simply provides you with durability concerning your identity. It is unrelated.
Zetice 3y ago
The guarantee is that the AT protocol doesn’t work that way. They literally could not, technically. You own your data, the entire protocol is built around that basic fact.
- sbierwagen 3y ago
  Nothing stops them from changing the protocol. It's like insisting blockchain transactions are immutable when Etherium issues updates all the time to reverse transactions that happened due to hacks.
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    >Etherium issues updates all the time to reverse transactions that happened due to hacks. Why waste your time and others posting lies on the internet? Easily debunked ones at that.
    - progbits 3y ago
      This good enough evidence for you? https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-779 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-779
      - newZWhoDis 3y ago
        The DAO fork is nothing like you describe, and was a singular incident in the first major smart contract. BTC had a similar fork in its early days to work around a bug that actually minted illegitimate coins, yet maxis sweep that under the rug. But you knew this, you knew what the DAO fork was. You know when it happened. You knew it was the first major smart contract. You know the context it happened in. You know the community overwhelmingly supported it. You also knew it hasn’t happened since, yet you still went out and lied. Why?
  - hoidofyolen 3y ago
    they could change the protocol going forward if they wanted but all of the data currently posted on the protocol from the past would still be migratable to another PDS who supports the "old" fork of ATproto. I don't think they could change all the data you already posted with a future protocol change, that's not how it works.
manojlds 3y ago
BlueSky is a Public Benefit LLC btw https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview
- riffic 3y ago
  PBLLC still has shareholders for the record it's not entirely clear who are the specific shareholders of Bluesky PBLLC other than a vague mention it was "the team itself". https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1518707603232083968 https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1518707603232083968
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > PBLLC still has shareholders Strictly speaking, no, they don’t, and neither do regular LLCs. Corporations have shareholders, partnerships have pattners, and LLCs have members.
    - riffic 3y ago
      thank you for the correction! I'm not sure where to find clear "membership" of the PBLLC but I assume they have to file paperwork showing something where they are registered. I haven't been paying too close attention but I'm sure some people are interested.

No guarantee they don’t change this when they get bigger and shift from user acquisition to revenue & profitability. Bluesky is VC funded and there’s expectations of revenue growth down the line.

mg 3y ago

I have not looked into it very deeply yet, but as I understand the Bluesky project, this would not be as easy for Bluesky as it is for Twitter and Reddit. You can use your own domain as your identity. Even when you use a service like bsky.app, you can use @yourdomain.com as your handle. And switch to any other service to publish under the same handle.

svnt 3y ago
I’m not sure how your argument serves as any counter to “VCs invest in companies to make money” except that the shell game may be one deeper in this case.
mdasen 3y ago
Anything can restrict traffic. SMTP has no lock-in and you can use your own domain, but Gmail could decide to send all your email to spam. Anything can just start ignoring traffic and not showing content. I remember when Google Talk used XMPP federation. Lots of people ran XMPP servers. Then Google turned off federation and only Google Talk users could chat with other Google Talk users. Unlike email, Bluesky essentially has one service. There's no culture of openness there. It wouldn't be hard for them to decide that they'd become the single service in the future. 99% of users aren't going to leave for a different provider and they could simply black hole stuff from other providers. I'm not saying they want to do that, but saying there's no lock-in is wrong at this point. Bluesky could shut down their ATProto entirely and just close if off and 99.9%+ of users wouldn't notice a thing. Bluesky can only be considered open once there are many other home servers and the Bluesky home server isn't the vast majority of traffic. Let's say it's 2025 and Bluesky has 500M users and there are 10 other servers with 5,000-500,000 users. Let's say one of the alternatives seems like it might be a threat to Bluesky's business model. Bluesky simply stops sending its posts via ATProto and then users on those other servers need to migrate to Bluesky. Total lock-in. Now, if it's 2025 and Bluesky has 50M users, ATProtoX has 100M users, SkyNet has 200M users, SocialSky has 25M users, etc., then it's hard to lock someone in. Bluesky couldn't cut itself off from 85% of the network. Bluesky could cut itself off from 0.001% of the network. Just because Bluesky is using the ATProto today doesn't mean they'll continue to. As long as Bluesky is essentially 100% of the content/users/etc., it's easy for them to pivot away from openness toward lock-in. It's only open if they can't cut others off and as long as they're the source of almost everything on the ATProto, they can always pivot away. Yes, with the ATProto you can move servers. That doesn't mean Bluesky will continue to use ATProto and have openness around posting/viewing content.
- hoidofyolen 3y ago
  the key thing though is that the data that people post with right now on Bluesky is on ATproto, which can be migrated to another PDS without permission from your current PDS (bsky.social). so if Bluesky tried to defederate you could take your data and fuck off with it to another PDS who supports ATproto and bam, Bluesky can't do anything about it. the only thing keeping lock-in right now is the PLC directory, which I think has plans to be owned by consortium eventually.
  - esmevane 3y ago
    That doesn't seem like a mitigation to what the poster above you said, to me. It just means that if I don't like it, I don't lose my posts when I move. That's nice but it offers no guarantees in the face of a corporate actor harming the overall federation of a network.
    - emptysongglass 3y ago
      You and others in this thread aren't grokking what this means in practice: it means that users are transparently redirected to your new home wherever you are. If a corporate juggernaut tries to harm the network, folks just pick up and move their identity. The protocol bakes in treating the provider like a dumb pipe. The protocol puts the power in the hands of the users and at any time they can just up and walk away, defeating the stickiness of the provider.
      - esmevane 3y ago
        No, I definitely get that. Where your data is, or is not, has no relevance to a network member choosing to behave badly or harmfully against that network. Nor does it actually impact what they can do to the network itself. It simply provides you with durability concerning your identity. It is unrelated.

Zetice 3y ago

The guarantee is that the AT protocol doesn’t work that way. They literally could not, technically. You own your data, the entire protocol is built around that basic fact.

sbierwagen 3y ago
Nothing stops them from changing the protocol. It's like insisting blockchain transactions are immutable when Etherium issues updates all the time to reverse transactions that happened due to hacks.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  >Etherium issues updates all the time to reverse transactions that happened due to hacks. Why waste your time and others posting lies on the internet? Easily debunked ones at that.
  - progbits 3y ago
    This good enough evidence for you? https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-779 https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-779
    - newZWhoDis 3y ago
      The DAO fork is nothing like you describe, and was a singular incident in the first major smart contract. BTC had a similar fork in its early days to work around a bug that actually minted illegitimate coins, yet maxis sweep that under the rug. But you knew this, you knew what the DAO fork was. You know when it happened. You knew it was the first major smart contract. You know the context it happened in. You know the community overwhelmingly supported it. You also knew it hasn’t happened since, yet you still went out and lied. Why?
- hoidofyolen 3y ago
  they could change the protocol going forward if they wanted but all of the data currently posted on the protocol from the past would still be migratable to another PDS who supports the "old" fork of ATproto. I don't think they could change all the data you already posted with a future protocol change, that's not how it works.

manojlds 3y ago

BlueSky is a Public Benefit LLC btw https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/2-7-2022-overview

riffic 3y ago
PBLLC still has shareholders for the record it's not entirely clear who are the specific shareholders of Bluesky PBLLC other than a vague mention it was "the team itself". https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1518707603232083968 https://twitter.com/bluesky/status/1518707603232083968
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > PBLLC still has shareholders Strictly speaking, no, they don’t, and neither do regular LLCs. Corporations have shareholders, partnerships have pattners, and LLCs have members.
  - riffic 3y ago
    thank you for the correction! I'm not sure where to find clear "membership" of the PBLLC but I assume they have to file paperwork showing something where they are registered. I haven't been paying too close attention but I'm sure some people are interested.