Bluesky, decentralisation, and the distribution of power Bluesky has seen a large inflow of new users following the results of the US election, and a significant amount of media attention as well. All that attention to Bluesky has also led to a renewed conversation around the question of whether Bluesky is decentralised or not. The terms decentralisation and federation are used in multiple ways: to describe the technological architecture details of an internet protocol, but just as often as a sh...
I don’t really get all the pessimism. Even if folks are right in saying there’ll be a bait and switch, this is people moving to a new platform en masse. If Bluesky goes to shit there’s more reason to believe users would just move again.
In the meantime, as members of the fediverse, we should be using Bluesky being “decentralized” as a way to ease people into actually decentralized platforms.
I can tell you right now nobody’s on Bluesky because it’s “decentralized” because the evidence is clear, it’s not in practice decentralized lol.
This is all a bloody waste of time. I really wish I could just fast-forward two years into the enshittification when everyone realizes they got duped by Big VC. Again.
Is Bluesky decentralized in any meaningful way? If the company dies, could the service live on?
Define decentralisation
If the company dies, could the service continue?