Strypey
(1/?)
"Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital"
@pluralistic, 2025
https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/20/capitalist-unrealism/#praxis
This is a bit of a clickbait title. Kind of like one that says 'dying from a long fall isn't caused by gravity'.
Strypey
(10/10)
Finally, if @pluralistic wants to see composable moderation in the fediverse, he could do worse than supporting IFTAS;
Moderation-as-service is right there on their homepage as one of their core purposes.
He could also support the FEP process, by which the fediverse developer community are extending ActivityPub to address new needs, created by new kinds of social software;
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/
Some of these are about federating features that BS has.
Strypey
(9/?)
If BS does enshittify, one of the first things they'll probably do is massively cut their costs by turning off ATProto connections to other services. Just as Goggle turned off XMPP federation with other services when they pivoted from GChat to Hangouts etc.
At which point, any cloned ATProto machinery will be revealed as the expensive boondoggle it is. Adversarial interop via BridgyFed will then be our best bet for keeping BS accounts accessible to those without one.
Strypey
(8/?)
Having said all that, I'm not going to rip into anyone for trying to clone BS's big machines. People have every right to use their time and resources however they want, and I've always believed in respect for diversity of tactics. Let's throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.
But am I going to be putting my time or resources into standing up ATProto machinery? No. Am I going to Boost crowdfunding campaigns for groups trying to do that? Probably not.
Strypey
(7/?)
We *already have* a way to interact with BS accounts without touching any part of the BS service. It's called BridgyFed;
Any time, money and effort we might spend setting up ATProto infrastructure would arguably be better spent shoring up Bridgy. Or setting up more instances of the code, so it's no longer a Single Point of Failure.
Because if @cwebber's analysis is correct - and I've yet to see it debunked - this approach would give us way more bang for buck.
Strypey
(6/?)
Firstly, because of the protocol physics of how ATProto works, most of the people with BS accounts are irretrievably stuck on the company's service. As @cwebber pointed out in her analysis, BS accounts aren't really that portable in practice;
https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/
Yes, setting up clones of the big machines of the BS service would allow people to interact with BS accounts without using any other part of BS. But there's a simpler way to do that, which brings me to point 2.
Strypey
(5/?)
Cory's point is that we should support the project to realise the federation potential of ATProto, so people aren't locked in to BS. But there's two reasons that's a fool's errand, neither of which he addresses in his piece.
Strypey
(4/?)
But it's equally true that VC is essential to enshittification. If it wasn't, then we'd expect to see enshittification of centralised services like Wikipedia, or Archive.org, even though they're not-for-profit. After all, they're just as hard to leave or replace as BlueSky.
We don't see that. Therefore, centralisation, and the lack of labour, regulation and other constraints, are clearly not enough. Dying from a fall requires gravity, and enshittification requires VC.
Strypey
(3/?)
Coming back to Cory's title, he's quite right to say that VC funding of digital tech startups is not enough to cause enshittification, by itself.
In a society with strong labour movement, nuanced public regulations protecting our privacy and control over our data, and obliging interoperation between similar services (eg the EU's DMA), VCs would be forced to invest differently. Aiming to make moderate returns from startups that compete to offer better services.
Strypey
(2/?)
Technically speaking, it's true to say that it's not gravity that kills you when you fall. The sudden impact at the end does that.
*But*, it's equally true that if impact alone were the cause, jumping off a chair would kill you. The impact at the end of a long fall kills you only because gravity makes you accelerate as you fall. In other words, it's both.
Strypey
Speaking of fediverse projects needing support, I've mentioned before that @dansup is one of the most prolific developers in the 'verse. Leading the charge on Pixelfed, Loops, Sup, Pubkit FediDB, and fediverse.info. The recent drama around TakeTok in the US, and its possible purchase by ZuckerBorg, have highlighted why developing short video apps for the fediverse (like Loops) is so important.
@Dansup is running a crowdfunding campaign to fund their work. Please share;
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixelfed/pixelfed-foundation-2024-real-ethical-social-networks
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