cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/24748390
https://bsky.app/profile/freeourfeeds.com/post/3lfmvqip7zk2v
tldr, it's a new foundation launching with an open letter signed by:
Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
Shoshana Zuboff, Professor Emerita, Harvard Business School and author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’
Mark Ruffalo, Actor
Alex Winter, Actor and filmmaker
Audrey Tang, Former Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan
Roger McNamee, Businessman and author of ‘Zucked’
Brian Eno, Musician
Carole Cadwalladr, Investigative journalist
Cory Doctorow, Blogger and journalist
Akilah Hughes, Writer and comedian
Sebastian Soriano, Former Chairman, Arcep
Rosie Boycott, Member, UK House of Lords
Alexandra Geese, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA
...
Bluesky has expressed a clear interest in public governance of the protocol they have developed. We are establishing a Foundation to help steward this process, to ensure that the AT Protocol remains capture-resistant and is instead governed in line with a thriving public interest and open community.
Well, obviously the $4m wouldn't have to be spend on ActivityPub protocol development, meaning it could be spend way more effectively to on specific gaps in the network and software.
But even that aside, ATproto is a funnel towards Bluesky the company. It's fundamentally designed to have a winner takes all situation, so yes maybe these $4m could be effectively used to improve it, but the only one that will ultimatly benefit from that is Bluesky.
Edit: I guess I am just repeating myself. But I recommend reading up on the ATproto design. It's not necessarily bad if your goal is to create a single global town-square (i.e. Twitter like) microblogging website, but given this design goal, it will always be dominated by a single entity controlling the app view, and that is likely to be Bluesky itself.
Well, if they build enough leverage, they could force Bluesky to adopt a version of AT that is less skewed in their favor. Protocol details are easy to change when you have only one adopter, lol. Not sure this is part of their strategy though.
Also you seem to be thinking that anybody involved in this (the fediverse, bluesky, this initiative) follow a logic of commoning, where this money will be spent to improve the technical protocol itself. I don't think this is the goal at all here. They want to change the power structure in the world of social media and integrating with AT is just a tool for that, that might change going forward. AT is interesting only insofar it supports their goal, but the interest of the "AT commons" (which for what I know is basically non-existant) is a secondary concern for now.
No, like I wrote in my edit: I recommend reading up on the ATproto design. It’s not necessarily bad if your goal is to create a single global town-square (i.e. Twitter like) microblogging website, but given this design goal, it will always be dominated by a single entity controlling the app view, and that is likely to be Bluesky itself.
$4m is not nearly enough to wrestle control away from Bluesky, and even if that would succeed you would have not fundamentally changed the situation but just replaced one single controlling entity with another.
This scenario would also be aligned with the goals of this initiative. I don't think they see a problem with it. The majority of the signatories are techno-optimist liberals who believe the good tech bros should be in control of society's discourse to prevent the American empire from collapsing. Billionaries are evil because they are enemy of the status quo.