“our lead shares our philosophy that technology should serve the user, not the reverse
this is why they focus on blockchains, a technology basically always used at the expense of its users”
i do think the degree to which bluesky is stressing that they do not use blockchains really underscores how toxic even a faint whiff of blockchain has become to any normal platform
@molly0xfff the only good thing I find in this AI frenzy is how much less I have heard about blockchain.
@molly0xfff I've said before that for the fediverse to "win", we just have to wait until the "competition" gets enshittified.
I'm relieved to see that it might not actually take that long!
@Lazarou @molly0xfff Hah, well I simplified a bit, so I do want to add that we still have a lot of work to do to make the fediverse a truly diverse and safe space.
And that's really what I want to us to focus on, as a community, while we wait for the inevitable cycle of enshittification of corporate social media.
@arkd i’m not sure if i’m more active there -- i post roughly equally across all my platforms because i POSSE most of my posts from my site
@stefan @molly0xfff and, for the one time in history, the concept of AI existing actually does us good
if time-to-enshittification-rate (whatever that term at this point even means) is correlated to funding rate, Bluesky's much lower funding rate compared to Twitter in the same stage of the platform's life, it would suggest that it would take quite a while for bluesky to get enshittified. 15milion usd is a pretty low amount of money, and Im guessing they couldve raised a lot more if they wanted to, considering the MAU graphs they can show
(source: https://bsky.app/profile/ripperoni.com/post/3l7brn5wero2j)
@molly0xfff From what I've read about ATP, it seems like IPLD, the tech that they've built the data repos on, could be quite easily adapted to add a cryptoccurrency layer, so that's fun
@molly0xfff It involves VC and they say "we will not hyperfinancialize the social experience" so we now know with certainty that they are going to hyperfinancialize the social experience.
(sorry broke the reply chain because I accidentally replied from the wrong account first)
yeah true. My vibe is that Jay has a big network in the crypto world, and is selling atproto as embodying the ideals of the crypto world related to decentralisation and selfownership of digital identity, without the major drawbacks of what she seems to call hyperfinancialisation
I think to normal people (even semi-tech-savvy folks like myself), the whole blockchain concept is so complicated and obtuse that we've dismissed it as merely some form of technological ponzi scheme and buzzword that tech people use in an effort to impress or out-do each other (and dupe investors) because nobody understands what it is, so they think if they use the term it makes them seem "smart".
So those of us with functioning brains and zero patience for buffoonery or chicanery close our eyes and ears whenever we hear the word "blockchain".
“in conclusion, we truly believe these leopards won’t eat our face.
love, bluesky”
I think they're more interested in the mirage of a "user experience", which they can define however they like, and bill to the user no matter how much of their blockchain gets stolen in the exchange.
@laurenshof It is mind-boggling to me that Farcaster as raised over $150 million. I’m still puzzled about what role they are going to have if the fediverse and atmosphere have most of everyone’s attention.
Does this means there are / is now 13M+ ' active NFT users ' confirmed or ? 👀👀
Ooooh, fertile time to launch my AI generated NFT cryptocurrency, wherein each Coin is nonfungible/unspendable but utterly secure!
@molly0xfff A few months ago, we had a BlueSky employee present at a conference on grassroots social networking here in Vancouver, Canada
They really believe in all this. And even if they don't use blockchains it is their clear inspiration - they seem to be most concerned with "censorship resistance".
Someone raised the question of whether you could stop Alex Jones on this platform, and another AT Protocol enthusiast (not the employee) was proud to say you could not
@molly0xfff i don’t believe in shortcuts or easy money. It doesn’t amuse me “digital” money … and it so volatile and so easy to play it that I could win big money 2022 when it was reach the bottom easy guessable …
@molly0xfff
I mean, it's entirely possible it will all be fine, and everything will work out well.
But they also just invested a nontrivial amount of cash in a business with literally no pubic plan for how to make money, and are going to expect a return on that investment. They also don't seem to have a track record of just hurling money at things because they want to be nice?
So, um...yeah. I have no idea what happens, I honestly hope for the best, but it's hard to image this is stringless
@molly0xfff my guess is it’s eventually going to be bought by a billionaire with an agenda and they’re all going to have to flee again.
@molly0xfff Yay, subscription models so we don't gimp your video uploads. That ain't a slippery slope. Nope.
@molly0xfff Wondering how a monetisation model that presumably only applies to ppl who are on their server works with their claim that they are definitely really actually committed to decentralisation and letting ppl run their own servers?
@stefan @molly0xfff bold take considering most workers wouldn't dream of doing things differently; they love their masters.
@molly0xfff “and to make sure everyone benefits we’re adding the leopard to our board where they could theoretically vote to change our policy on eating faces”
They need to publicize their charter. We don't even know what their "public benefit" goals are. We don't know the voting power breakdown of their ownership structure. We don't know what their plans for profitability are (other than obviously selling your data and ads eventually).
AT Protocol is a centralized system masquerading as a decentralized platform simply because they give you the option of running the entire infrastructure yourself (which nobody ever will).
Everything about this company is geared to make you believe its something that it isn't. They're all frauds and people using Bluesky are marks at best.
@bflipp @molly0xfff Nobody gives a fuck about "centralized" or "decentralized" except a bunch of old-timey internet nerds (I include myself in that group). The users want a platform that lets them chat with their friends and acquaintances and parasocial crushes (and yell at the media) with as little friction as possible. They Do Not Care who owns it, so long as they're not assaulted with nazi propaganda every time they log in.
@molly0xfff didn’t see it coming when I was on twitter, older and wiser or once bitten twice shy, but will stay off b sky, it’s destiny is same as the birdsite
@molly0xfff The way they described how really, honestly, truly BS isn't going to be using blockchain makes me think they've already implemented some completely useless crypto feature they'll start unrolling like next week.
Do you have any idea how much the $15million represents to BlueSky? As either operation or valuation?
@i_understand again, it's an unusual definition of blockchains. there are shared characteristics, to be sure, but git lacks immutability and decentralized consensus mechanisms
@i_understand the contents of a git commit can't be changed without changing the hash, if that's what you're referring to, but git is absolutely mutable. ask anyone who's accidentally checked in a private key.
Also, they are using the present tense rather than the future. It's factual that they don't use it now, and that's all they were sure about. They didn't say "we will never use it" or even the softer more wiggleroom-ish "we have no intention of using it".
All they said about their future plans was they wouldn't "hyperfinancialize" the "social experience". This is so vague as to be meaningless in practice.
@molly0xfff or the last 10 years I have consistently voted for the party that claims to want to prevent leopards eating faces, and each time I've been disappointed by the lack of progress.
I've had enough. This year, I'm voting for the other guy.
@laurenshof @stefan @molly0xfff yeah, fwiw I think the dollar amount here is probably the least concerning thing. they're easily on track to generate more than enough value to justify that. it's the everything else about vc that is more of an issue.
@molly0xfff hey, I’ve been meaning to ask (since I read your article on POSSE) if you’ve documented what your exact setup is? I love the microblog theme you’ve been using, and I’ve been wanting to amalgamate my web stuff in a way that makes sense, and you… just seem to have it sorted?
@molly0xfff Well, they are also useless. I mean, RAID is nice, but doesn't need that many copies. And updating an entire world exactly when anything happens is not a good use of internet transactions or people's time sunk in the latency.
