I recently finished the episode of The Verge’s podcast #Decoder with the interview to Bluesky’s CEO and it seems a quite interesting project. At the beginning I wasn’t looking really into it because of their choice of using a new protocol instead of the existing ActivityPub, but after listening to her and the reasons behind this choice maybe I’ll give them a chance.
What do you think? Do you use it alongside with the fediverse?
It’s still funded by ads and governed by algorithm recommendations, right? Even if they had perfect moderation, which is difficult to decide on anyway, it’s still got the same incentives as Twitter, which means it will inevitably become Twitter. They want you to spend more time on it to make more money, so they show you things most likely to get a reaction out of you, which means they’re showing you things designed to get you angry and respond. Mastodon is much nicer for giving everyone equal billing and allowing you to modify that by following people you want to hear from most.
Bluesky has no ads, and a chronological feed.
Huh, interesting. What’s their business model then, and how do they plan to scale?
https://bsky.social/about/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan
No ads … Yet.
It was funded by venture capitalists that demand payback.
They are currently in enremovedtification stage 1 where everything is wonderful and free. The users have not been monetized yet.
That’s not their business plan.
I read their posted business plan, and there is no way on God’s green earth that what they have in their business plan will raise the money they need.
It is worth noting that what they posted in their business plan in July 23 (1) differs quite a bit from what Jay Graber mentioned as their business plan in an interview with The Verge in Feb 24 (2), which again differs on quite a few points from what Jay Graber mentioned in a podcast with The Verge in March 24 (3).
(1): https://bsky.social/about/blog/7-05-2023-business-plan (2): https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/6/24062837/bluesky-drops-invite-system-begins-federation-at-protocol (3): https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/25/24108872/bluesky-ceo-graber-federation-social-media-decoder-interview
Thanks for the links!
Just FYI, Lemmy markdown for numbered lists is as follows:
Is PieFed markdown different?
Well, if what she says in the interview is the truth they don’t plan to make money with ads, but with a cut on their marketplace of algorithms &co + with custom handles (aka custom domains)
So yeah, maybe it will not end up like Twitter
they have a following feed but they also let users create their own algorithmic “feeds”, too which is really nice.
https://blueskyfeeds.com/en
they also open sourced their moderation engine so third party users can create labelling engines: https://www.engadget.com/bluesky-will-let-users-run-their-own-moderation-services-230017647.html
they also have their own trust and safety and in house moderation teams though (and transphobia usually gets taken down really quickly). they also have moderation lists that people can create that people can subscribe to so accounts on those lists get automatically muted or blocked for you as long as you subscribe to the list. like i’m subscribed to three lists by kairi (@estrogenempress.gay) which keep transphobes, bigots, and anti gay people automatically blocked.