logoalt Hacker News

toomuchtodoyesterday at 7:59 PM1 replyview on HN

What does success look like? I get what I want from Twitter/X through a pull through cache. I get to read the folks I follow on Bluesky. Works for me? My feed as a utility is working as expected. I keep what I want to read, and mute and block that which I do not. I remain in control of my data and experience of the firehose. If someone I'd like to see on Bluesky is not yet there, I ask them to be. If there is data on Bluesky not yet there but that might have value to others, I pipe it in via a PDS and pub sub automation.

How would email and RSS be the next big thing? Because that is what https://atproto.com/ is, and to some extent, here. A private entity or individual cannot capture the AT Protocol network as happened to Twitter/X, it has already succeeded.

Certainly, this is a different perspective than "What metrics can we use to value this entity we're going to attempt to flip to someone else?" Worst case, the public benefit corp is converted to a non profit and tax deductible donations are used (potentially with a foundational fund built to operate in perpetuity, think Wikipedia) to fund the underlying storage and distribution infrastructure and labor costs for operations, similar to Signal and many other tech non profits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo (nsfw)

(Threads is always there for the normies until it enshittifies and Meta chases whatever catches Mark's eye next)


Replies

speak_plainlyyesterday at 8:19 PM

I think there are two things going on. After launch, there was an exuberant group of users who believed the purpose or aim of Bluesky was to be a recreation of Twitter in terms of user base and impact. They were lead on by the icon a bit and lots of rhetoric. And I think many believed it would destroy X. By their standards, Bluesky is an epic failure.

But by the aims of the company itself, moving social media from proprietary platforms to open protocols, it's a major success. And I think it can continue down that path and serve its users.

show 2 replies