[ch71r22]

Maybe their efforts will be co-opted, but judging by the team's background -- André Staltz with Secure Scuttlebutt, Paul Frazee with dat/Beaker/Hypercore Protocol -- I think it's pretty clear the driving motivation for much of the team behind Bluesky is not profit.

As for why people might want to use it instead of ActivityPub, I think it's just... different from ActivityPub. Even though ActivityPub is an available option I don't see why it should be the last word.

Bluesky's answer is this

> Account portability is the major reason why we chose to build a separate protocol. We consider portability to be crucial because it protects users from sudden bans, server shutdowns, and policy disagreements. Our solution for portability requires both signed data repositories and DIDs, neither of which are easy to retrofit into ActivityPub. The migration tools for ActivityPub are comparatively limited; they require the original server to provide a redirect and cannot migrate the user's previous data.

> Other smaller differences include: a different viewpoint about how schemas should be handled, a preference for domain usernames over AP’s double-@ email usernames, and the goal of having large scale search and discovery (rather than the hashtag style of discovery that ActivityPub favors).

https://atproto.com/guides/faq#why-not-use-activitypub

[wmeredith]

>judging by the team's background -- André Staltz with Secure Scuttlebutt, Paul Frazee with dat/Beaker/Hypercore Protocol -- I think it's pretty clear the driving motivation for much of the team behind Bluesky is not profit.

Not to be overly cynical, but I just don't care. Things change. When mega-corps and investors come knocking with 10-figure checks... 99.9% of humans will cash out. It's human nature. I've invested my time and energy in many things that have been taken over and destroyed by bad/incompetent actors, virtually all of which had promising starts, or I wouldn't have gotten involved.

[pfraze]

The organization is a future adversary. You build the technology knowing you won’t be staying at the company forever, and you signpost the things that protect users / your-future-self. This includes open sourcing everything, moving specs to standards bodies when they stabilize, and building the network around low switching costs.

I can’t predict the future. We may screw it up. I’m trying to protect the community from us if we do.

[rchaud]

That's not a cynical take for anyone who's observed the past 20 years of the web.

Page and Brin explicitly spelled out how advertising could change the incentives of a search engine. That didn't stop them from selling out immediately and letting the VCs install a CEO to 'businessify' the company.

[scarface74]

Did you at any point think that Google was going to be a non profit?

[blowski]

I remember being a naive 20-something and believing they’d find a new way of doing business. Maybe a co-op.

[rchaud]

No I didnt. I did think they could make money outside of adtech as numerous software busineses before them had done.

[flowingfocus]

And besides the current people themselves changing, there are also many other ways in which incentives can change: new people get into the mix (investors, board members, c-level), people leave etc. I recently formulated it like this: As long as an experience of something that I want to have in my life can be influenced by a single entity I have to hope the incentives of that entity do not change drastically.

[bnewbold]

As a small nit, André Staltz is not directly affiliated with Bluesky. Paul and a couple other folks on the team have a track record with similar open projects.

[smoldesu]

> We consider portability to be crucial because it protects users from sudden bans, server shutdowns, and policy disagreements

I think this will have the opposite effect. Account portability means that being banned on one site can ban you on another if you try to use the same ID. Being persistently recognized across accounts seems like a net-negative for all of these things.

[hgsgm]

Non-issue. You don't have to use account portability if it doesn't work. You can use it if it does work.

[serverholic]

Same with mastodon. Your id is tied to the server so if you get banned you have to create a new id on another server.

Mastodon is worse because your data is in the server owner’s hands. At least with Bluesky your identity and server are separate so you still have your data.

[dmix]

Exactly, it's just removing the pointless (and terrible UX) step of having to sign up again.

I imagined trying to explain to my mom why she'd have to signup for Mastadon again because the server she signed up with is gone or she got on one of the massive blacklists for engaging with the 'wrong' accounts.

[serverholic]

More than that, it puts your data into your hands. If someone kicks you off a server for whatever reason you still have your account and you can visit other servers. With mastodon you’re at the mercy of whoever owns the server.