People keep reacting to Blueksky VC news with variations on "now they're going to enshittify," but no. Not yet. VC funding is runway. It's time they can devote to user-friendly features that boost growth. For years to come, Bluesky will look and feel increasingly great. The bits they build in service to their investors will largely be invisible, or presented as optional—data harvesting and brokerage, engagement juicing, blockchain functionality, etc. Enshittification comes later, when the VCs try to wring a little extra juice from an investment that has peaked. It's the coming growth period, when everything seems awesome, that sets us up for that fall.
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L. Rhodes
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Lots of people are rushing to Bluesky thinking it will turn out differently from Twitter, and they're wrong. But lots of people here expect the heel turn to come soon, to the fediverse's advantage, and they're also wrong.
And while we're at it, the people who suppose that Bluesky and its VC investors will idly let outsiders bridge in and get more of Bluesky's benefits than its drawbacks are probably wrong, as well.
The economic logic doesn't support any of those suppositions.
L. Rhodes
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •tuban_muzuru
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •My old man used tio say, 'Never borrow another man's trouble for the same reasons you wouldn't f*ck his wife."
VCs are parasites on the ass of capitalism.
L. Rhodes
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Bluesky and enshittification | destructured
destructuredMylesRyden
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Thus has it ever been with OSS projects. The year of the #Linux desktop never comes, because it is easier for corporate IT departments to blame Microsoft rather than taking responsibility.
Recently a bakery here in town closed and a completely different person opened a completely different bakery business in the same physical space. People complain all the time that the "new owners" have changed everything. And refuse to understand they didn't buy the business, they just are renting the same space.
OSS is similar.
And frankly, I am happy that people are flocking to Bluesky. And that there is no huge move to the Linux desktop. As long as we are an unprofitable backwater, enshittification will stay away.
FinalOverdrive
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to FinalOverdrive • • •FinalOverdrive
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to FinalOverdrive • • •Spujb
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •When #Bluesky enshittifies, everyone will either go back to #twitter or to a new corporate "alternative," because most people would rather die than go through the ordeal of picking an instance, apparently.
@pence
MarjorieR
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Clearly there are some in the #Fediverse who may want to bridge in to Bluesky but equally there are plenty of others, including me, who want to keep as far away from it as possible.
Dan Neuman
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to Dan Neuman • • •Maxi 10x 💉
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Jesse Baer 🔥
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to Jesse Baer 🔥 • • •Laurens Hof
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •@misc im not sure on how likely it is either, but it absolutely is what im hoping for.
the advantage of having bluesky around is that it can make it much clearer in what direction fedi should not go in
Jesse Baer 🔥
in reply to Laurens Hof • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to Jesse Baer 🔥 • • •The Nexus of Privacy
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •fork fork fork fork fork fork :)
but yes, agreed with everybody all around on this thread
@lrhodes @misc @laurenshof
Laurens Hof
in reply to The Nexus of Privacy • • •@thenexusofprivacy @misc
id much prefer different software altogether at this point, as that allows you to revisit all assumptions that are build into the twitter-style public microblogging, and design for networked communities from the beginning
plus avoids technical and cultural debt that masto has
L. Rhodes
in reply to Laurens Hof • • •Jesse Baer 🔥
in reply to Laurens Hof • • •L. Rhodes
in reply to Jesse Baer 🔥 • • •tsk
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •John Rockefeller
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Isaac Ji Kuo
in reply to L. Rhodes • • •Those of us who see the obvious know about the timing of the enshittification. It will coincidentally happen about 3 years from now, just in time to ruin the next election. Heck, it might even be Elon Musk himself who buys Bluesky 3 years from now, just so he can laugh at all the fools who fled to Bluesky.
And all the fools fleeing to Bluesky don't see it.