I’m not the author, just sharing.
The main argument against bsky is that they’re still holding all of your data, unless you self host your own server.
I don’t actually see how Lemmy is much different. Most users are not self hosting on Lemmy either, you’re trusting your data to a 3rd party. The main difference seems to be that there’s much more centralisation on bsky.
I think it’s entirely reasonable to be wary of any service, be ready to delete your account if it goes to shit or whatever it is you need to do to feel safe.
But right now, I like blue sky. I’ve had far more positive interactions on there than I ever had on twitter (even before musk took it over), the lists feature that lets you pre-emptively block entire swathes of dickheads is a game changer (I just block one group, anyone Maga) and I’m having a good time.
I expect I’ll get downvoted for this but honestly I don’t care, the world has gone to shit far too much for me to give a crap about what internet strangers think over my own health and wellbeing and right now I’m having a good time and will not apologise for it.
The second that stops, I’ll be leaving bsky.
You’re right that the issue isn’t just trusting a third party in general, that’s how it is for most users on Lemmy or Mastodon too.
The difference isn’t whether you personally run a server. It’s whether the network depends on a single company.
Bluesky operating basically all of the infrastructure on that network means:
- they decide moderation policy and what content gets boosted or hidden for everyone
- they alone can change the rules for access and in general (ads, pay to be seen etc.)
- they can de-prioritize or cut off third-party infrastructure
- if the company fails, pivots or is pressured legally (I’m sure the current US government could never do such a thing), the network can effectively collapse
Here on Lemmy there is no single company that has all that power. If your admin goes bad there are real options to move to and the network will still exist even if they shut their service down. You also have much more leverage over here because you have those options and no operator is drawing in tens or hundreds of millions from investors who get to make the decisions.
Why would people here consider Bluesky when Mastodon already exists?
Bluesky built the platform that people actually want.
Mainly an algorithmic feed and more relaxed and diverse userbase.
They captured some hype but nowadays you often see people complain that the userbase isn’t diverse and that all they talk about is US politics, there’s lots of dormant accounts and the active user statistics have been looking pretty bleak since early 2025.
Assuming they don’t actually have 100M in funding already secured (which i doubt) I think there’s some doubt over how long they’ll actually be able to continue operating this way.
Adulation of for profit big tech assholes is near ubitious.
Network effects.
I just facepalm internally whenever I see someone recommending bluesky on the fediverse.
I know I should stop holding them to a higher standard, but still.
Yeah, but it has a good UI and isn’t a massive echo chamber so what cha gonna do?
Normies just get screeched at by tankies and nerds and leave 🤷♂️
lol, how is it not a massive echo chamber when that has been the constant complaint in countless articles that keep getting made fun of instead of being taken seriously on Bluesky.
Bluesky is in its essence a corpo methadone for the Twitter addicts… its not freedom, its a packaged, tailored simulacrum of it.
IMO this is unfair and conspiratorial. The people behind Bluesky have been quite clear about where they are trying to go (i.e. not simply replace Twitter), some of those people have a lot of credibility in this area, built up over years. Maybe they make different assumptions about tech and user preferences but I see no reason to assume evil intentions.
From the second article:
But I’m not on Bluesky and I don’t have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will
Fair enough. But, as you know already, AT Protocol is not chained to Bluesky. Other things are already being built on it (Blacksky for instance). Sure, the startup costs of federation are high, but that was a technical choice. To insist that it’s all a plot to become the next evil Twitter continues to feel a bit swivel-eyed to me.
This is yet another version of the ridiculous “we’re decentralized in theory so it doesn’t matter that we aren’t in practice” argument which the article does address. In practice it is chained because they are in complete control of the real-world use of it.
People are even worried about Google’s control over Android recently and Google has much less power over AOSP than Bluesky Corp. has over ATproto.
What is swivel-eyed is believing that Venture Capitalists won’t do the thing they’ve historically always done in the past when they’re in control.
they are in complete control of the real-world use of it
They’re not. I mentioned Blacksky.
As I understand it, their endgame is that Bluesky will be a big fish in a pond of other fish, and that the best way to get that fishpond is to make Bluesky as good a product as possible, hence the (limited) VC money.
As a strategy it has risks but so does the alternative. To make the obvious comparison, UX on the fediverse is rubbish, with an incomprehensible onboarding funnel, amateurish design, servers that keep disappearing. There’s a reason Bluesky has eaten the fediverse’s lunch.
With respect, I think people here are making this into a sterile religious war when really it’s a disagreement about strategy. Some of the people who vouch for Bluesky I have been following for years. They want exactly the same things as most people here. Personally, I see no reason to question their intentions.
I’ll take the “eeewww ugly UI” risk over the “high barriers to decentralization” risk.
Blacksky does not fundamentally change the situation. They’ve got a yearly budget in excess of $100,000 and roughly 0.01% of the users. Bluesky can make all those users completely disappear from the other 99.99% with the press of a button and in the case of Link they did exactly that.
As for the “let’s trust the Bluesky team” idea, that’s of course exactly what got everyone into this mess with Twitter. The leadership can change. The investors can push them to do what they want no matter how great people the public facing team may seem to be (and honestly some of the things they’ve done has not inspired trust).
I mean…yeah. The guy who created Bluesky is the same guy who created Twitter originally. What makes you think anything would be different? I’m honestly surprised they’re even humoring the idea of decentralization.
Jack dorsey didn’t create bluesky, and he had little effect on it.
He started the team for bluesky after reading protocols, not platforms. They were given a lot of independence from twitter (so much so that they were able to continue as a separate thing after twitter got musk-ed), but the goal was to eventually implement the protocol they come up with/choose on twitter.He was on their board for a short period of time, but ragequit and deleted his account after they started moderating content.
I also find the idea the people working on bluesky are “holding back” the decentralisation efforts funny, considering they are making literally no money right now.
He also left Bluesky in 2024 after it didn’t become the libertarian techbro wankfest he envisioned and was instead heavily populated by folks who didn’t want to slob Elon’s knob.
He publicly distanced himself but Bluesky’s ownership is very opaque and they do dishonest PR very well so I would not be at all surprised if Dorsey still owns a part of it.
And he fucked a potato after peeling it and putting it in a sandwich baggy!
Are you asking people to send you photos of that?
I do think the people behind it like the idea of data portability and decen, just not enough to compromise their business for it.
This seems to be the closest to a reasoned argument in this thread. Realistically, what should they be doing differently?
deleted by creator
you mean the social network whose CEO told users to simply stop posting on their platform when she refused to ban a publicly known racist and transphob from the platform? that social network? The social network whose users decided segregating themselves was the best way to use said platform? that one?
Bluesky is a joke and its userbase are the punchline.
Bluesky is a joke and its userbase are the punchline.
Succinctly said, I love it
It’s popularity had nothing to do with the protocol and making cries to such does nothing.
Make fediverse competitive client wise, and stop screeching at peoples in the center when they call Gavin progressive 🤷♂️. It’s not the tech that keeps people away, it’s the users.
Agreed. They’re both open on the internet and the data is in many repositories. Moot point (OPs’, not yours).
It obviously matters whether the data and control is mostly in one company’s hands, not just whether it is in “many repositories”.
Do you not get ‘open on the internet’? All the three letter agencies hoover the data up, your countries equivalents do as well, other companies. It’s only a bit in one companies hands, because it’s ‘open on the internet’, just like xitter, facebook, tiktok, their walled gardens don’t stop state level actors, just us plebs (a bit). That just leaves control (in real time), some power, some money there, but long term it’s the data that counts.
I don’t think you’re even talking about the points the article makes… You probably wouldn’t want them selling your data either but this is more about avoiding the kind of fate Twitter had.
The cries are about how Bluesky uses it and implements the required infrastructure, not the protocol itself.
I’ve run into people like that on Bluesky much more than on the fediverse. They do of course exist on both.
Pretty funny to see this here because this blog post seems like written with AI assistance (“it’s not just x, it’s y”, etc.) and also its author advocates for Nostr instead.
(“it’s not just x, it’s y”, etc.)
Keep in mind, the AIs learned from us. So that’s a thing in AI responses because humans use that structure. Same with em dashes.
Not much substance to your comment either… do you agree with it?
