So I thought that BlueSky was set up just like Lemmy in that it was fully decentralized into a sort of “terrorist cell” structure that wasn’t focused on profits, but then found out that BlueSky has a CEO. Since this is a business, what makes BlueSky fundamentally different from Twitter or Instagram?
I feel like so long as a social media platform exists through monetization (in some form or another private companies need to make money), we are ultimately replacing one dictator with another.
They’re getting ready to release a subscription service.
Social media servers cost money. There are only three options.
1: (Lemmy, bsky now) - someone runs it for their own private reasons and users bemefit as side effect or charity.
2: (Twitter, facebook, reddit) - someone runs it as marketing, and sells user eyeballs or data.
3: (some MMOs, bsky future) - someone runs it and sells users things to keep it running.
Baky says they want to keep the current experience free, and are contemplating a freemium add-on subscription. Maybe they’ll stick to this and maybe they wont, but “they sell subs” isnt guaranteed enshittification they way that an IPO and ads are.