I've had a lot of people ask how BlueSky compares to Mastodon and the Fediverse. I've tried to make the answer as simple and easy to understand as possible:
BlueSky is designed to give corporations and wealthy people full control of the network. All of its traffic has to flow through expensive-to-run corporate relays.
The Fediverse is designed to give ordinary people control of the network. All of its traffic flows directly from one cheap-to-run server to another.
@FediTips people flocking to bsky thinking it's going to be different has me shaking my head. Just look at their investors. Blockchain, lovely.
Most of BlueSky's board is blockchain people. Their CEO's CV is mostly blockchain and cryptocurrency companies.
@FediTips @effariwhy One day we'll purge anyone who has ever worked on a crypto project from working on anything ever again
then we'll do a one world government!
not getting the joke
maybe executing them will make these idiots happy
@joe I think I'll just unironically prefer applicants who have no experience in blockchain.
@haui you're right, we should discriminate more based on technology
@FediTips @effariwhy Do you have a link to the current status as a source?
I only know this article (in german) from November: "Bluesky: How is a ‘decentralised ecosystem’ financed? Bluesky was launched as a non-profit organisation, and controversial names emerged in the latest round of financing"
https://www.derstandard.de/story/3000000245588/bluesky-wie-finanziert-sich-ein-dezentrales-oekosystem
@w_b @caos @FediTips @effariwhy I was like. I'll take a quick look at that.
Firefox read mode said that the estimated read time is 55 to 70 minutes.
I might as well start.
@w_b @caos @FediTips @effariwhy
So... BlueSky Direct messages all go through a central server. And are not encrypted E2E anyway.
I don't like that.
Never thought about it but DMs in Mastodon are not E2E either.
I'm just learning about ActivityPub. How difficult would it be to E2E DMs?
Could you provide encryption keys on both ends. And make it to where something like the users pass decrypts DMs?
@txtechnician @caos @FediTips @effariwhy
End to end encryption has been a problem in email that still is not solved. The problem is the key distribution.
I don't know how Signal, etc. do it but it would seem publishing the public key in the user profile would solve e2e for at least DMs.
@w_b @txtechnician @caos @effariwhy
Social networks in general aren't good for privacy, as far as I know none of them have E2EE. It's much better to use encrypted messaging systems such as XMPP with OMEMO, @briar etc.
There is discussion of how to bring E2EE to Mastodon at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/19565 but it hasn't been updated in some time.
@FediTips @w_b @caos @effariwhy @briar oh man. I think that encrypting toots. Is Overkill. But I do see the need to encrypt private messages.
I mean the difference is obvious. One of those is meant to be public. The other one is meant to be private.
> How difficult would it be to E2E DMs?
I think @soatok is working on something for this.
BlueSky is not a non-profit, it is owned by Bluesky Social PBC which is a for-profit corporation.
In October it announced that it had partially sold itself to Blockchain Capital, and the same announcement said they had appointed a blockchain/cryptocurrency expert to their board:
https://social.growyourown.services/@FediTips/113364985280012085
This is in addition to their CEO being a blockchain/cryptocurrency person:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Graber
AFAIK the board only has three people, so a majority are from blockchain.
@FediTips @effariwhy I don't think blockchain and cryptocurrency is automatically something bad, I just don't see it's place in a decentralized social media network.
@voxel it really is. it wastes a ridiculous amount of energy, thus causing unnecessary emissions and speeding up climate change
@jakeyounglol @voxel I mean they could tie it with movements towards more sustainable methods such as solar and etc, but they don't.
The real issue is these things are basically built to be scams and are being used as such. They scam people on the blockchain stuff itself and use the blockchain stuff to run other scams as well. It's not all as obvious as those who lose their livelihoods, but sneakier stuff like Bluesky eventually turning into another X and manipulating people.
@nazokiyoubinbou yeah, that too. it’s basically all just a decentralized ponzi scheme
@voxel @FediTips @effariwhy I don't think we've come up with a single use for blockchains that isn't zero-sum speculation though. Every cent "made" by anyone on Bitcoin was lost by someone else, it generates no value. And destroys value in production.
Yes, the technology itself isn't harmful. But we haven't found a non-harmful use for it yet.
@effariwhy Oh man, Automattic alone being on there is like because look what a shitshow Matt has made out of Wordpress and Tumblr. I know he's just investing, not owning, but he seems so capable of breaking everything he touches
@lyssachiavari I'm not up to date on what's happening with wordpress other than Matt calling GoDaddy a "parasitic company" for profiteering from the open source project without giving anything meaningful back
@lyssachiavari though Automattic investing in Bsky is definitely a red flag. Invest in the fediverse first.
@effariwhy He's continuing to double down. He tried to block WP Engine (it was WPE, not GoDaddy) from being able to access the plugin repository to update their plugins, a judge told him no, so he had a tantrum and said he wasn't going to update WP anymore, then when other people said they'd be happy to step in he blocked them from the repository, he's also been firing anyone who tells him to calm down
@effariwhy
I had my doubts about Bluesky and kept procrastinating ... And now I am not going to join.
It's too similar to Twitter and I think it will have the same sad ending.
@palin @effariwhy it is a good source for journalist at the moment but I fear you are right.
@lillyfinch I was disappointed to see that the Associated Press created a bsky account and actually posts to it, but the only way we see them here is via flipboard (@AssociatedPress). Same with a lot of other news orgs.
@effariwhy @AssociatedPress what is a flipboard? Elder here and always learning.
@lillyfinch @AssociatedPress <--- notice that AP doesn't have a mastodon account. They post at Flipboard.com (a commercial site that isn't really part of the fediverse). Mastodon servers show Flipboard user posts so we can see them, but none of our posts show on Flipboard.
@effariwhy @AssociatedPress sooo….flipboard via mastodon is safer than bsky ap news account?
If bsky goes the way of twitter, it would be better to follow them here via Flipboard and not have a bsky account.
I would rather see the AP and other news orgs actually support the #fediverse by having a mastodon account. Instead, they use commercial platforms, and this mastodon server displays their posts from them.
AP is not supporting #decentralized architecture, which is our only hope to break free of the endless cycle of corporate takeovers.
@effariwhy @AssociatedPress ah got it…I wish that as well. It is our only hope. Quite a few journalists are now on Substack.
@effariwhy @lillyfinch @AssociatedPress I mean technically a fediverse server owned and operated by AP would be a corporate service
@theothersimo @lillyfinch @AssociatedPress yes, but the conversation would be 2 way. Right now, no one on flipboard.com sees our engagement, but we see theirs.
@effariwhy @lillyfinch @AssociatedPress couldn’t resist the urge toward pedantry, sorry
@effariwhy @FediTips Just missing a fairly shady gambling website or two.