So AT, but not necessarily to Bluesky itself per se (or rather, not “just” to it), as opposed to ActivityPub?
Yeah, there are apps launching that filter BS for images (Instagram) or videos (TikTok) but they are quick and easy to deploy - BS could build those filters in itself.
The killer services will be standalone ones running on the AT Protocol. They’ll get a tonne of buzz and will see similar numbers of users switching to them from the Big Web but, without safeguards, they will be indistinguishable from the older Big Web services and have the potential to enshittify.
I think if people writing open source software e.g. underpinning Mastodon would simply listen to potential users, then people would actually join it.
The problem is, BS has millions of VC capital (including from blockchain bros) and, at some point, they’ll want paying. If the Fediverse had a fraction of that a lot of wrinkles would be ironed out.
Perhaps dansup’s successful Kickstarter and the rocketing success of his Pixelfed show we can push projects on to bigger things. However, we’ll always lag behind.
I was just talking about the funding. A number of users do pay for the servers, because of the relatively low cost of running an instance a small percentage of them cover all the bills.
On ownership, that’s the way of the beast on what usually start out as hobby instances. I’m sure as things mature and grow a lot of us will move to establish nonprofits.
Worth noting that, for feddit.uk, I run the server and GA runs the domains, so we’d both have to agree to a sell-out. Also we didn’t start the instance, just took it over when the original Admin went AWOL, so we’ve successfully transferred the assets before and, if Lemmy lasts long enough, we’ll do it again as we get too decrepit to keep things going.
The funding is key to this as it is all done through Open Collective, so it isn’t in an Admin’s bank account and so changing Admins is straightforward on that front.