[Arnt]

I feel, intuitively, that they might make sense if they pay attention to Bluesky.

The general tenor of these postings is "Bluesky will turn to shit because […explanation…]", where the explanation ignores the work done by the Bluesky team. The authors write as though the Bluesky team has never heard about enshittification, or hasn't thought about it or about how to cope. That's unreal, and an unreal premise never leads to insightful conclusions.

[mozarella]

I think the author Cory Doctrow (who is actually a published author) laid out his case quite clearly. He doesn't question the intentions or sincerity of the BlueSky team. But from past experience he is not confident that will be enough. We have all been there before. (I am old enough to remember when the likes of Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. held themselves to similarly lofty ideals and standards.) But under pressure whether it is financial pressure or political, regulatory or or from investors, employees, the board, competition, etc. Bluesky may very well choose to renege on those promises to their users- This is enshittification. The only guarantee against this is if Bluesky allows users to seamlessly migrate their account (including posts, followers) to another host without any disruption or degradation of their service.

[Arnt]

He doesn't question the intentions or sincerity, agreed, but he also doesn't discuss their actions AFAICT. He writes as if Bluesky's actions cannot affect the future of the service.

It seems to me that the Bluesky team is painting the company into a corner, where it'll be able to make a nice profit from a nice service, but can't grow to hire 7000 people, have a 500-strong HR team or a ten-digit valuation.

[austin-cheney]

That misses the point because it doesn't matter. If you need somebody to host your content then they own your content, the corresponding account, and the distribution of that content and absolutely everything else that touches the platform.

Some people need to broadcast on these platforms because the are super strong at marketing, but not strong enough at anything else, and so they are doomed to these kinds of repeated inevitable failures. Its hard to have sympathy for that when absolutely everybody knows that going in, but nonetheless they will ask for sympathy because they can't be bothered with an alternative.

[jqpabc123]

...hasn't thought about it or about how to cope.

Or maybe they have thought about --- and intend to deal with it in pretty much the same way as all their predecessors.

Bluesky is up to their ass in venture capital funding. Ignoring this fact and presuming some viable, unknown/unspoken alternative exists to defy the forces of capitalism they are in bed with is unreal, and an unreal premise never leads to insightful conclusions.

[Arnt]

They've been open about how to deal with it — and do not intend to deal with it in pretty much the same way as all their predecessors.

[jqpabc123]

"They" are subject to being replaced --- in which case, everything "they" say now may no longer hold true.

The reality is that the venture capitalists they are in bed with will push for maximum return on their investment.

History suggests that at some point, the VCs will most likely win and the slide toward enshittification begins.