p.s. A number of people have pointed out that the current CEO of BlueSky is also from a blockchain/cryptocurrency background:

2015 - Engineer at blockchain company SkuChain

2015 - Worked assembling bitcoin mining equipment

2016 - Developer on Zcash cryptocurrency

2019 - Happening Inc founder (cannot find any trace of this, no idea if it involves blockchain)

2021 - CEO of BlueSky

Also, the current BlueSky board seems to be three people: two blockchain experts and one non-blockchain person.

Just another corporation. Been saying that all along but some people block and "report" me for the truth.

Truth haters are welcome to block me but reporting me to the admin is useless because I AM an admin on Beamship 😂

People think NFTs are for money laundering.

When in fact the more pernicious use is #surveillance

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusting_…

LOL. Where does the corporate apology industry come up with these fake descriptions? A social networking company needs a "natural partnership" with a cryptocurrency company, like a fish needs a bicycle.

The absurdity and betrayal of customers is typical of private equity, not a responsible social networking company that claims to honor its customers' privacy.

While true, the team in that article also state that they "will not hyperfinancialize the social experience (through tokens, crypto trading, NFTs, etc.)"

I do hope that this remains true, as the more alternatives to the bird site, the better. A lot of people still see Mastodon as too isolated, which is fair.

From what I gather in the comments, it seems the users are okay with it as long as there are no actual crypto stuff and no ads. Not a high bar to clear, but when your other experience is with Twitter, you'd take what you can get.

The Fediverse is still the more optimal choice, but overall I'm more cautiously optimistic about Bluesky rn. It's interesting to see how it will sustain itself in the future without succumbing to ads, and maybe there's lessons to learn from it too.

There is no perfect social media experience.

I just find surveillance capitalism an instant turn-off which is why I avoid corporate-controlled sites.

I never got on bsky because I learned from my Twitter experience.

So far, the only issue with Mastodon has, occasionally, been other people. For me, that’s stayed at a manageable level.

If it ever becomes untenable, welp, social media ain’t necessary for my survival. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Just this once I would like to have been wrong.

But no.

yes, that was to be expected.

I’m glad that Mastodon is licensed under AGPL, because that makes it much less likely to be proprietarized (as long as a diverse enough group of people contributes).
@jwz

Yeah, Bluesky is not worth it. Just more tech bros in power. Plus, their attempts to filter content are laughable and are often self defeating.

But I need to know, WTF is an "NFT Analyst"?!? Seems like a pretty simple gig, tbh. I think Keanu Reeves showed that he nailed the job requirements here:

youtu.be/h0-fYXR3M2o?si=oaZENy…

#nfts #keanureeves #bluesky

Keanu Reves on NFT and Digital Scarcity

^YouTube

OH COME ON.

I thought we were past this blockchain/cryptocurrency BS

Important context though:

This does not change the fact that the Bluesky app and the AT Protocol do not use blockchains or cryptocurrency, and we will not hyperfinancialize the social experience (through tokens, crypto trading, NFTs, etc.).

I don't like it either but I think it's important that people understand that Bluesky isn't running on the blockchain or going to implement NFTs.

BlueSky writes in the announcement:
"Our lead, Blockchain Capital, shares our philosophy that technology should serve the user, not the reverse — the technology being used should never come at the expense of the user experience".

Ah, the user experience! Meta (or any other big-tech company in the surveillance capitalism league) would probably come up with a simular statement if asked ...!

So which network is worse, the crypto-friendly one actually investing and working on functional Trust & Safety features, or the one who federated with Meta and still doesn't have a limited reply function?

(Real talk, I don't know the answer to this question)

No surprises here. Bsky scored very high on my enshittification bingo card since day one, but there's no need to go through the whole list. The most important parts:
- Is it closed source? Yes (partially).
- Is it for-profit? Yes.
- Is it centralized? Yes.

Such projects turn into garbage very fast these days. Historically, the process was much slower (although the end result was the same).

@AnnaAnthro

At least there is no censorship there.

I didn't think that they were privacy respecting in the first place lol

They've always looked sketchy to me

@xinit @lori @sirsean Sadly full account portability would require public key cryptography which was dropped in one of the Mastodon updates and was barely supported to begin with.

It's also why Bluesky went with a new protocol instead of ActivityPub.

That portability only works if follows, posts, likes and reposts aren't tied to domains and are instead tied to cryptographic keys.

@lori full account portability would be nice, especially if there were a way to trigger it securely should an instance shit down spontaneously.

@sirsean @FediTips @jwz