This is exactly the dynamic the article was describing: concerns about power concentration get answered with lists of theoretical protocol features instead of engaging with how the network actually operates. Listing technical escape hatches doesn’t address who controls the dominant infrastructure in practice.

The overwhelming majority of users rely on hosted PDSes, the main relay, and the default appview. Whoever controls those layers controls visibility, discovery, moderation signals, and reach. That’s where practical power sits. Doesn’t matter whether migration is technically possible under ideal conditions because if you’ll need it they won’t be ideal.

Acquisitions and policy changes can happen quickly. Tools that exist “yesterday” are irrelevant if users don’t act before control consolidates, and history shows that most don’t. Claiming decentralization can wait until the last possible moment ignores how network effects and defaults entrench power long before any formal lock-in occurs.

It’s also worth noting that the original article isn’t even arguing “the fediverse is better,” yet the response immediately reframes the debate as a comparison. Even if we entertain that framing, the situations aren’t symmetrical. Yes, a fediverse instance can block migrations or misbehave but no single party in the fediverse comes close to the infrastructural dominance Bluesky Corp currently holds across relays, appviews, and user gravity. An individual Mastodon instance misbehaving affects its users. Bluesky Corp fully controls the experience of over 99% of the users on the protocol and so holds the power to shape the experience of the entire network.

The issue isn’t whether both systems have theoretical weaknesses. It’s where systemic leverage concentrates in practice. And ATProto’s architecture, particularly the cost and complexity of running the more demanding components that need to have a global view of the network, structurally favors concentration at those layers.

Did this say whether the reasoning models get this right more than the others? Was curious about that but missed it if it was mentioned.

I don’t think you’re even talking about the points the article makes… You probably wouldn’t want them selling your data either but this is more about avoiding the kind of fate Twitter had.

They captured some hype but nowadays you often see people complain that the userbase isn’t diverse and that all they talk about is US politics, there’s lots of dormant accounts and the active user statistics have been looking pretty bleak since early 2025.

Assuming they don’t actually have 100M in funding already secured (which i doubt) I think there’s some doubt over how long they’ll actually be able to continue operating this way.

Blacksky does not fundamentally change the situation. They’ve got a yearly budget in excess of $100,000 and roughly 0.01% of the users. Bluesky can make all those users completely disappear from the other 99.99% with the press of a button and in the case of Link they did exactly that.

As for the “let’s trust the Bluesky team” idea, that’s of course exactly what got everyone into this mess with Twitter. The leadership can change. The investors can push them to do what they want no matter how great people the public facing team may seem to be (and honestly some of the things they’ve done has not inspired trust).

Because presumably you left reddit for a federated alternative to escape something exactly like their platform is likely to become and wouldn’t want to prop up yet another example of that when there are better alternatives.

This is yet another version of the ridiculous “we’re decentralized in theory so it doesn’t matter that we aren’t in practice” argument which the article does address. In practice it is chained because they are in complete control of the real-world use of it.

People are even worried about Google’s control over Android recently and Google has much less power over AOSP than Bluesky Corp. has over ATproto.

What is swivel-eyed is believing that Venture Capitalists won’t do the thing they’ve historically always done in the past when they’re in control.

It obviously matters whether the data and control is mostly in one company’s hands, not just whether it is in “many repositories”.

Not much substance to your comment… do you agree with it?

You’re right that the issue isn’t just trusting a third party in general, that’s how it is for most users on Lemmy or Mastodon too.

The difference isn’t whether you personally run a server. It’s whether the network depends on a single company.

Bluesky operating basically all of the infrastructure on that network means:

• they decide moderation policy and what content gets boosted or hidden for everyone
• they alone can change the rules for access and in general (ads, pay to be seen etc.)
• they can de-prioritize or cut off third-party infrastructure
• if the company fails, pivots or is pressured legally (I’m sure the current US government could never do such a thing), the network can effectively collapse

Here on Lemmy there is no single company that has all that power. If your admin goes bad there are real options to move to and the network will still exist even if they shut their service down. You also have much more leverage over here because you have those options and no operator is drawing in tens or hundreds of millions from investors who get to make the decisions.

yeah I’m not sure Upscrolled is going to be an improvement over Tik Tok in the long run in any way. Not open source or federated, probably will be even easier for Trump-supporting billionaires to buy it than TT for example. Supporting Loops makes much more sense.

You could also implement features that reduce the addictivity as the EU might be demanding of Tik Tok in the future. When it’s a federated open source platform with no profit motive that’s going to be something much more easy to get in.

He publicly distanced himself but Bluesky’s ownership is very opaque and they do dishonest PR very well so I would not be at all surprised if Dorsey still owns a part of it.

lol, how is it not a massive echo chamber when that has been the constant complaint in countless articles that keep getting made fun of instead of being taken seriously on Bluesky.

I’ve run into people like that on Bluesky much more than on the fediverse. They do of course exist on both.

it means don’t believe their PR about being decentralized, claims about there always being a way out or it being impossible that they’ll turn bad the moment the pressure to start extracting profits becomes a reality.

with XMPP there’s the cautionary tale of Google Talk. For the rest I’m not aware of such an example but email is becoming more centralized than ever and RSS is much less prominent than it once was, mostly replaced by profiles to be followed on closed off platforms.

dansup is Canadian. I guess it makes sense to get the iPhone app up on the store first if you’re trying to get users from the US market where people are moving away from TT currently.

maybe one day they’ll get to open sourcing a MS-DOS version late enough for it to be included

You can say that but it’s entirely different from bringing up deliberately pointing the camera of a device at the jury. And again, there was nothing about them looking at something in particular or anything suggesting the intent to film. As I said it is also very easy to know if the camera is activated.