How Decentralized Is Bluesky Really? https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
A technical deep-dive, since people have been asking me for my thoughts. I'll expand a bit on some of the key points here in a thread.
First of all, before I say anything else, my goal here is NOT to be mean to Bluesky's devs. I know there's a lot of fediverse-Bluesky rivalry, but I have enormous respect for Jay Graber and her team and I know they believe in their vision!
This started because I got some very kind encouragement by @bnewbold to write something. I'm trying to be technical in my analysis, not unkind. I hope that can be recognized, really and truly.
Hey, Christine.
I do not like the framing of the difference between ActivityPub and AT Proto as one of technology and not of governance.
I also think there are problems with examining ATProto since it is a proprietary protocol and Bluesky has not made a patent license statement about it.
UPDATE: Changed from questions to statements to make it less confrontational.
@cwebber @bnewbold I hope Bluesky Inc. will make a big donation to the Spritely Institute. You did a huge amount of work.
UPDATE: a lot of people seem to think I'm calling my friend Christine a sellout here. There are few if any people in the world whose integrity and ethics I respect more than Christine's. I apologize that my wording made it seem otherwise.
@cwebber omg, I skipped all the way to the end and OBVIOUSLY you look at this situation from every conceivable angle, including governance, because it wouldn't be a Christine Lemmer-Webber post without it.
I appreciate the depth of analysis. I do still think that Bluesky should make a donation to Spritely if @bnewbold asked you to make a 25-page report, though.