3 ms·

What's Bluesky's revenue stream? Ads?

by loceng 3y ago

abhibeckert 3y ago
I'm pretty sure it's "we will figure that out later".
- methodical 3y ago
  A bit presumptive but the answer to that is likely ads. Unless they try the whole premium subscription model like Twitter (X) and realize nobody cares that much to pay $5/mo for social media.
hackernewds 3y ago
it's a Jack Dorsey initiative so I'm sure it is "cross-subsidization through Square's investors and balance sheet"
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  Jack doesn't own the company, the employees do. He is on the board though.
steveklabnik 3y ago
https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > Bluesky’s business model must be fundamentally different — we are a public social network and our code is all open source, so we have no “moat” when it comes to data. That's such a bullshit claim. The entity that runs the servers where the data is stored always has a moat. They can aggressively rate limit scraping and simply refuse to provide dumps, and suddenly, they are the gatekeepers to everything that actually matters. Open source has nothing to do with this.
  - steveklabnik 3y ago
    A few things: 1. while they're still not quite there, the protocol is federated, so they aren't the only servers storing your data once that happens. 2. because stuff is signed to your account, and other PDSes replicate posts, even if your host got weird, you could recover a lot of it. if you want to be extra sure, you can run your own PDS as well. I am not super up to date with how much replication various "reach" services store the firehose permanently, but should be possible to get content from them, for example. 3. I agree that open source doesn't prevent this.
    - pfraze 3y ago
      > 3. I agree that open source doesn't prevent this. You can always erect walls around things. We at least try to poison pill it enough that if the company tried to, people would exit with the data first. Which is why internally we don't see us as having a strong moat around the data.
      - steveklabnik 3y ago
        Yep! I think it's great that y'all are open sourcing stuff. Necessary, not sufficient. Glad you're going further than that.
    - p-e-w 3y ago
      > so they aren't the only servers storing your data That's only true if other large servers eventually emerge. "Federated" systems have a tendency to coalesce into a network wherein a few big players – often just a single one – dominate the ecosystem. Gmail, Matrix.org, the few Mastodon and Lemmy servers that actually matter, etc. are examples of this. Usually, this leads to the dominant servers dictating rules for everyone else under threat of defederation (already the status quo with Mastodon today). And at the end, you have a hyper-complicated federated system that operates the same way as the centralized systems it originally aimed to replace.
      - steveklabnik 3y ago
codemusings 3y ago
Not sure how they still could hope to gain enough traction to become profitable. Meta is already running circles around Bluesky both in terms of active users and features.

What's Bluesky's revenue stream? Ads?

by loceng 3y ago

What's Bluesky's revenue stream? Ads?

abhibeckert 3y ago

I'm pretty sure it's "we will figure that out later".

methodical 3y ago
A bit presumptive but the answer to that is likely ads. Unless they try the whole premium subscription model like Twitter (X) and realize nobody cares that much to pay $5/mo for social media.

hackernewds 3y ago

it's a Jack Dorsey initiative so I'm sure it is "cross-subsidization through Square's investors and balance sheet"

steveklabnik 3y ago
Jack doesn't own the company, the employees do. He is on the board though.

steveklabnik 3y ago

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan

p-e-w 3y ago
> Bluesky’s business model must be fundamentally different — we are a public social network and our code is all open source, so we have no “moat” when it comes to data. That's such a bullshit claim. The entity that runs the servers where the data is stored always has a moat. They can aggressively rate limit scraping and simply refuse to provide dumps, and suddenly, they are the gatekeepers to everything that actually matters. Open source has nothing to do with this.
- steveklabnik 3y ago
  A few things: 1. while they're still not quite there, the protocol is federated, so they aren't the only servers storing your data once that happens. 2. because stuff is signed to your account, and other PDSes replicate posts, even if your host got weird, you could recover a lot of it. if you want to be extra sure, you can run your own PDS as well. I am not super up to date with how much replication various "reach" services store the firehose permanently, but should be possible to get content from them, for example. 3. I agree that open source doesn't prevent this.
  - pfraze 3y ago
    > 3. I agree that open source doesn't prevent this. You can always erect walls around things. We at least try to poison pill it enough that if the company tried to, people would exit with the data first. Which is why internally we don't see us as having a strong moat around the data.
    - steveklabnik 3y ago
      Yep! I think it's great that y'all are open sourcing stuff. Necessary, not sufficient. Glad you're going further than that.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    > so they aren't the only servers storing your data That's only true if other large servers eventually emerge. "Federated" systems have a tendency to coalesce into a network wherein a few big players – often just a single one – dominate the ecosystem. Gmail, Matrix.org, the few Mastodon and Lemmy servers that actually matter, etc. are examples of this. Usually, this leads to the dominant servers dictating rules for everyone else under threat of defederation (already the status quo with Mastodon today). And at the end, you have a hyper-complicated federated system that operates the same way as the centralized systems it originally aimed to replace.
    - steveklabnik 3y ago

codemusings 3y ago

Not sure how they still could hope to gain enough traction to become profitable. Meta is already running circles around Bluesky both in terms of active users and features.