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.
this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
121 points (94.8% liked)
Fediverse
40836 readers
536 users here now
A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!
Rules
- Posts must be on topic.
- Be respectful of others.
- Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
- Follow the general Lemmy.world rules.
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
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?
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
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?
load more comments
(2 replies)
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).
OK I get all that and it's not to be dismissed. But their product is better than what we have here. That's why Blacksky built upon it and not upon this, despite the cost. The excessive centralization seems to be more of a human problem than a technical one. Humans take the path of least resistance and Bluesky's resources have allowed it to make a product that the fediverse will never be able to compete with.
Personally, I get what I want here (I don't use Bluesky) but it's pretty clear to me that I'm not representative (in caring about the principle of decentralization) and neither are you. I'm a pragmatist by nature. Bluesky and AT Proto are an obvious improvement on Twitter. If they have the potential to be a version of decentralization that actually takes off and goes mainstream (because let's be serious, the fediverse is not doing that), then personally I would take that win. It hasn't happened yet but personally I'm not going to spit on it in advance like everyone here is doing.
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
I agree. But it's a bit scary even for Lemmy, given that all the most active communities are currently hosted on the same 1 or 2 biggest instances.
Also, see what recently happened to LemmyNSFW...
No, the main argument is that the main relay is, and for the foreseeable future will be operated by bluesky. This means that bluesky can decide what is and isn't visible, but that's not my biggest issue: to me the bigger problem is that bluesky sees everything that everyone says or thinks about anything.
Yes, it is possible to change. As TFA says:
But every counter-argument to the concerns above rests on the same foundation: technically, users can leave. Technically, you can self-host. Technically, you can run your own relay. The capability exists at every layer. But people don't do these things. They never have with any protocol. Not email, not RSS, not XMPP. The default wins. Always.
It doesn't matter that a few can be free: the vast majority goes where the lowest friction is because they have their life to live, and the lowest friction leads to the centralized bluesky
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.
The cries are about how Bluesky uses it and implements the required infrastructure, not the protocol itself.
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".
load more comments
(2 replies)
I've run into people like that on Bluesky much more than on the fediverse. They do of course exist on both.
load more comments
(1 replies)
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.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Network effects.
Adulation of for profit big tech assholes is near ubitious.
Copy/pasting a comment from another thread:
That’s the same argument people made about Twitter. “If it goes bad, we’ll just leave.” We know how that played out.
This conclusion is based on a misunderstanding of both what Frazee meant, and how the protocol works. He wasn't saying to switch to a different platform altogether, but to switch to a different appview, akin to switching instances on mastodon.
If I were to make the same argument for mastodon: Mastodon.social has gone evil, there's a new alternative called mstdn.social that people are rushing to. I'm switching to mstdn.social.
In the case of bluesky, the bluesky appview has made some bad moderation decisions, so users annoyed at this can (and do) use blacksky's appview.
Switching appviews doesn't have the hassle of switching mastodon instances though, you just have to go to a different site, and login again. You can continue using your old PDS.
You may recall that there were some articles about how one user on blacksky's servers got banned, but he was still gone from blacksky's app?
That's not even true, the user is available on blacksky's appview: https://staging.blacksky.community/profile/spacelawshitpost.me .
What had happened here was:
- Link had an account on a blacksky pds (https://blacksky.app/)
- Blacksky runs a bluesky client (not appview, just the frontend--that makes requests to another appview), pointed towards bluesky) at https://blacksky.community/.
- Link gets (unfairly) banned from bluesky, but his account is still safe on his PDS, but viewing it on blacksky.community shows that it was banned, because blacksky.community was pointed at bluesky's appview.
- Some people assume bluesky is the same as fedi (without the split between data storage and applications), and this means bluesky banning him banned him on his home instance, since the client said he was banned.
- Blacksky didn't run an appview at the time (iirc, they are writing their own implementation from scratch), but they do now.
In reality, his account was still viewable on alternate appviews, like wafrn instances. You could (and still can) also view and intereact his account on https://reddwarf.app/ , a client that works through direct PDS queries, that doesn't rely on a relay or appview.
When you use any ATProto app, it writes data to your Personal Data Server, or PDS. Your Bluesky posts, your Tangled issues, your Leaflet publications, your Grain photos. All of it goes to the same place.
This is done intentionally, and it has a lot of advantages over how the fediverse does things.
Instead of having to make a new account for every different "style" of platform, you can use your existing PDS account.
PDSes are also very flexible in what they can hold, you can create a record that contains basically anything.
Also, data isn't just stored on your PDS, it's also stored on relays and appviews. Data is content addressed, meaning that it is portable, you can easily move all your data to another PDS. This isn't possible on the fediverse as all data is "centralised" to it's instance. While you can move your followers, your posts immovable.
You can self-host a PDS. Almost nobody does. Why would they? Bluesky's PDS works out of the box with every app, zero setup, zero maintenance. Self-hosting means running a server, keeping it online, and gaining nothing in return.
To be fair, migration tools exist. You can move your account to a self-hosted PDS for as little as $5 a month
This sounds like the author is implying your only option is to self host, when there's many different PDSes with open signups already.
I was able to migrate to https://altq.net/ (semi-open PDS, you have to ask an admin for an invite code to stop spam), with no self hosting involved.
Bluesky has made this easier over time and even supports moving back. But this only works if you do it before the door closes. If an acquirer disables exports, it doesn't matter that the tools existed yesterday. And we know from every platform transition in history that almost nobody takes proactive steps to protect their data.
This isn't exclusive to atproto. A fediverse instance could decide to block incoming migrations, or to block outgoing migrations (pixelfed.social has had outgoing migrations disabled for a while recently).
It's also possible to move permissionlessly, if you get your rotation key, you can migrate PDSes, even if your old pds is gone, or your admin tries to block exports.
It's not just the PDS. Bluesky controls almost every critical layer:
The Relay. All data flows through it. Bluesky runs the dominant one. Whoever controls the relay controls what gets seen, hidden, or deprioritized.
Relays are less relevant than everyone thinks they are. Appviews don't have to use relays, they just help solve the missing data problem of the fediverse. AppViewLite is a project that lets you crawl PDSes directly--no relay involved!
Relays are also a part of the fediverse, for the same reasons they exist on atproto.
Third parties can run their own, but without the users, it doesn't matter.
This again feels like the article is implying that there isn't third party relays running already. Blacksky runs a relay at https://atproto.africa/ . There's also:
- https://relay.fire.hose.cam/
- and three relays ran by https://firehose.network/
off the top of my head. As stated previously, relays aren't an integral part of the network. With direct PDS crawling and stuff like https://constellation.microcosm.blue/, there's no inherent need for a relay.
It's worth mentioning that relays aren't that expensive to run. It's possible to run one for $34 a month.
The DID Directory. Your identity on ATProto resolves through a centralized directory run by Bluesky. They've called it a "placeholder" since 2023 and said they plan to decentralize it. There's still no timeline.
Plc.directory is currently in the process of being moved to an independent swiss company. It's just taking time because legal stuff takes time.
If plc.directory disappears, the network doesn't fall apart, there's many different mirrors. I have a mirror on a PC in my attic.
There's also a second supported did: did:web. This runs entirely independently of bluesky.
At every layer, the answer is "anyone can run their own." At every layer, almost nobody does.
This ignores the fact that people do run stuff.
The protocol says you can leave. But the company that just paid billions for the network has no incentive to let you.
The protocol is designed so you can leave, even if your PDS/host has been taken over. This is why they did stuff like portable objects/identity, which the fediverse doesn't do.
If bluesky gets taken over, they don't have a way of stopping exports, whereas a malicious mastodon instance can.
This is exactly the dynamic the article was describing: concerns about power concentration get answered with lists of theoretical protocol features instead of engaging with how the network actually operates. Listing technical escape hatches doesn’t address who controls the dominant infrastructure in practice.
The overwhelming majority of users rely on hosted PDSes, the main relay, and the default appview. Whoever controls those layers controls visibility, discovery, moderation signals, and reach. That’s where practical power sits. Doesn't matter whether migration is technically possible under ideal conditions because if you'll need it they won't be ideal.
Acquisitions and policy changes can happen quickly. Tools that exist “yesterday” are irrelevant if users don’t act before control consolidates, and history shows that most don’t. Claiming decentralization can wait until the last possible moment ignores how network effects and defaults entrench power long before any formal lock-in occurs.
It’s also worth noting that the original article isn’t even arguing “the fediverse is better,” yet the response immediately reframes the debate as a comparison. Even if we entertain that framing, the situations aren’t symmetrical. Yes, a fediverse instance can block migrations or misbehave but no single party in the fediverse comes close to the infrastructural dominance Bluesky Corp currently holds across relays, appviews, and user gravity. An individual Mastodon instance misbehaving affects its users. Bluesky Corp fully controls the experience of over 99% of the users on the protocol and so holds the power to shape the experience of the entire network.
The issue isn’t whether both systems have theoretical weaknesses. It’s where systemic leverage concentrates in practice. And ATProto’s architecture, particularly the cost and complexity of running the more demanding components that need to have a global view of the network, structurally favors concentration at those layers.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Insanely well said. It seems like the goal with much of the discourse is just "my choice is right and everything else is wrong, and I'll work backwards from there". Not everyone uses social media the same way, not everyone has the same goals, not everyone wants the same features, not everyone values the same levels of privacy. And the running narrative with differing opinions on this seems to just be base-level tribalism. Just look at the insults here, lobbed solely because someone made an account with a social media platform that doesn't align with your preferences.
I'm sorry, but it's like you haven't read the post:
But every counter-argument to the concerns above rests on the same foundation: technically, users can leave. Technically, you can self-host. Technically, you can run your own relay. The capability exists at every layer. But people don't do these things. They never have with any protocol. Not email, not RSS, not XMPP. The default wins. Always.
It is always technically possible to do differently. It's computers after all: anything can be coded. And most people won't because they have their life to live. What matters is the default, and all the incentives point to the default being shittier as time goes on.
The most crucial point is the relay. Yes, appviews can work without, but then you miss everything that is happening which is probably the number one reason people go to bluesky rather than the fedi. Relays are a fundamental part of what makes bluesky attractive and they require large capital to run and maintain, so it all points to bluesky still running the main one that most will connect to
It feels like you haven't read my comment thoroughly.
To start, relays do not require large capital to run. This has been a misconception from the very beginning. I linked to this blog post, where a bluesky engineer runs a relay for ~$34 a month. If relays really had astronomical costs to run, I doubt Bluesky would run a whole separate one.
AppViews aren't limited to one relay, most I know point to blacksky's one as well.
technically, users can leave. Technically, you can self-host. Technically, you can run your own relay. The capability exists at every layer.
There's no need to self host as there's already public third party instances you can switch to. The alternatives already exist at each layer.
I do agree that too many users are on bluesky's servers, but that's not a fault of the protocol, and it's not something the fediverse is immune to either.
They never have with any protocol. Not email, not RSS, not XMPP. The default wins. Always.
This is just incorrect. RSS is probably one of the least centralised protocols right now, it's not even federated, which makes me question why the author even included it as an example. If anything, this reads as an argument against federation, rather than an argument for the fediverse.
It costs $34 a month for an experiment. It doesn't cost anywhere near that for a node that is running, used by thousands/millions of people, ingesting millions of pdses. Don't be misled by a nice experiment. You need servers, backups, people to run that. See what real world deployment looks like: a little bit under 100k a year for the only independent full stack.
There's no need to self host as there's already public third party instances you can switch to.
Yes it's possible. It's just not the default. That's the issue
it's not something the fediverse is immune to either.
true, although no one said the contrary
This is just incorrect. RSS is probably one of the least centralised protocols right now, it's not even federated, which makes me question why the author even included it as an example
The argument isn't whether something exists, it's what people use: rss is amazing but it's far from being mainstream. The default path to following isn't rss, which is the point (and the problem).
It's not an argument against federation. It's an argument to look beyond the niceness of a tech.
Blacksky doesn't just run a relay, they run an appview (way more expensive than a relay) and pds (admittedly pretty cheap).
The point of atproto isn't to have many different groups running the entire stack, you can use an appview by one group, powered by a relay by another, while using a pds by a third.
A relay I listed in the comment is a real-world one that is currently only costing the creator $30/month, which is ingesting all PDSes, and being used by a lot of apps.
true, although no one said the contrary
While the article itself didn't say it, the overall attitude of most people on the fediverse is that.
I do agree with you that users aren't exposed enough to third party infrastructure, and that most users using bluesky's servers is a problem, but the alternative is the jankiness of the fediverse, which completely puts new users off.
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
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.
Yes but in this specific case the author owns up to using Claude for "editing" of the blog entries.
Fair enough. I guess I'm just overly sensitive to the broad-strokes assumption that any given thing is an AI "smoking gun" since I'm an em dash user.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›