Item — HN Reader

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)

2 comments

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.

> And I think many believed it would destroy X.

Given what Musk did back at the time - member him carrying a sink? Randomly unplugging servers? - it was not that much of a stretch to assume the BS would eventually catch up with him and Twitter would enter the FO phase of FAFO.

Unfortunately, for unfathomable reasons Twitter is still alive somehow, despite being a cesspit of Russian propaganda, far-right propaganda, general trolls and a ton of porn sellers... I frankly assume the porn is what keeps a lot of people on there instead of Truth Social or one of the countless other attempts.

Two-sided networks are really something…. It’s almost impossible to kill a social network!

This is a very... Hacker News viewpoint that I think is quite popular in tech circles, and literally unheard of for most beyond. I don't think this is a matter of raising awareness either, it's the usual disconnect between people who take pleasure in learning about and using technology, and the average person who wants to minimize friction and inputs between them and tuning out.

I don't think that Bluesky is a success as an app or site, I think it's an example of ideological stagnation and evidence of an online political culture that's come unmoored from reality, which seems to be the trend for social media. It's not a very good place to be, and the most active parts of it are frankly really boring and thoughtless just like the rest of the social media landscape... albeit with a left-of-center flavor. As for the protocol... great? I've been hearing about the next big thing in fighting centralization and corporatization here for a loooong time, and it really feels like Charlie Brown kicking at the spot where a football used to be, over and over.

If the point is to come up with novel solutions to a problem in service of a tiny minority represented here... then great. It's a success. If the point is to ever compete with something on a different scale then this seems like treading water to me.