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Was just asked by a friend if I wanted a #BlueSky invite.
My reply?
“Thanks but no thanks.”
Why?
Because I don’t need to see the app. I know the people behind it and what they stand for. The app can only ever be a manifestation of (or an initial misdirection from) that.
Expecting the wolf that took a bite out of you last time to this time act in your interests is how you end up as its dinner.
@aral i don't think that's fair. Dorsey isn't actually that involved in it, and Jay Graber fully understands how to build user-respecting decentralized social services.
it is a legitimate threat to ActivityPub.
@ariadne I guess time will tell. How lovely it will be to have been wrong for once. I look forward to that day.
i think outside of those points, it is important for those of us who do care about digital autonomy to understand the players and what, if any, tactical threat they present to achieving our preferred outcome.
i think i need to write a blog about this so i can just include it by reference every time one of these cases comes up :)
@joelving @aral @ariadne it's not so much dismissing to good work that these people did or will do. It's about the fact that they are not the people that end up calling the shots.
You'll find wonderful people doing nifty stuff almost everywhere, including Twitter, Meta and all the others. But in the end the direction is determined by VC firms demanding their dues and/or a couple of layers of management that subscribe to the Church of Eternal Growt, No Matter What.
Enshittification happens despite the good folks, not because of them.
I don't disagree and it's not their technical prowess that I have faith in - it's their ethics and my belief that they wouldn't contribute to something so counter to what they worked on previously. They're my canary in the coal mine. If they leave, the benefit of the doubt is gone. Conversely, if the result is more Silicon Valley bullshit, then I'll lose faith in them.
STEMmers of the world have never (or very rarely) been in charge, actually leading. Instead, at least since the time of Leonardo da Vinci and likely for millennia prior, the STEMmers end up IN SERVICE TO sociopaths and psychopaths doing the "leading", their skills being exploited for the primary benefit of a socioeconomic oligarchy.
The STEMmers of the world - the best of them likely having #AuDHD traits - need to learn to eliminate this dependency.
@joelving @aral @ariadne Given that Hypercore has been eaten up by some extractive blockchain bullshit now (and taken out of community governance), for me that has significantly soured my view of the people associated with it. I'm not 100% sure that Frazee was involved with that decision, but vaguely recall that he was.
AFAIK, Frazee joined Bluesky before Keet was a thing by a year or so. I don't know if things were decided before that, though.
I absolutely agree that the Tether association is horrendous and I share your concerns about it. Best case, that's a serious lapse of judgement on their part.
@joelving @aral @ariadne It's possible that I'm misremembering. I looked into this a couple months(?) back, and remember having to search quite a bit to figure out exactly who was involved with the acquisition, there were some non-obvious associations. I unfortunately don't seem to have kept proper notes...