&handle=@bnewbold.net&avatar=https://cdn.bsky.app/img/avatar/plain/did:plc:44ybard66vv44zksje25o7dz/bafkreiglnysron3h2je7nf6cmvtimuaxi7xe2c7rkxitmks3mzmajnc2ou)
This is a reply to Christine Lemmer-Webber's thoughtful (and widely read) "How decentralized is Bluesky really?" blog post. I am so happy and grateful that Christine took the time to write up her thoughts and put them out in public. Her writing sheds light on substantive differences between protoco...
Reply on Bluesky and Decentralization | bryan newbold (⛱️ sabbatical mode)
This is a reply to Christine Lemmer-Webber's thoughtful (and widely read) "How decentralized is Bluesky really?" blog post. I am so happy and grateful that Christine took the time to write up her thoughts and put them out in public. Her writing sheds light on substantive differences between protoco...
Re: Re: Bluesky and Decentralization -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
A few weeks ago I wrote How decentralized is Bluesky really?, a blogpost which received far more attention than I expected on the fediverse and Bluesky both. Thankfully, the blogpost was received well generally, including by Bluesky's team. Bryan Newbold, core Bluesky engineer, wrote a thoughtful response article: Reply on Bluesky and Decentralization, which I consider worth reading.
On discourse and decentralisation
Over the last year, as Bluesky got more popular, conversations about whether Bluesky and ATProto are really ‘decentralised’ have gotten more “popular” as well. These conversations ranged from high-quality, productive back-and-forth articles to people just saying a lot of dumb stuff on the internet (shocker, I know). As time went on, this discourse has grown […]
How decentralized is Bluesky really? -- Dustycloud Brainstorms
Recently due to various events (namely a lot of people getting off of X-Twitter), Bluesky has become a lot more popular, and excitement for its underlying protocol, ATProto, is growing. Since I worked on ActivityPub which connects together Mastodon, Sharkey, Peertube, GotoSocial, etc, etc, etc in the present-day fediverse, I often get asked whether or not I have opinions about ATProto vs ActivityPub, and the answer is that I do have opinions, but I am usually head-down focused on building what I hope to be the next generation of decentralized (social) networking tech, and so I keep to myself about such things except in private channels.
Rethinking Bluesky's "Decentralization": An Assessment as of January 2026 - Nightflight
January 19, 2026
Is Bluesky's "Decentralization" Real? – The Empty Promise of DIDs and the Path to a WordPress-Style Ecosystem - Nightflight
'Composable Moderation' May Protect Bluesky from Political Pressure | TechPolicy.Press
Shifting enforcement away from a single platform and into a distributed ecosystem should blunt interference by authoritarians, writes Audrey Hingle.
Bluesky est-il décentralisé ?
Bluesky et son protocole AT sont souvent décrits comme décentralisés, à la manière de Mastodon. Mais est-ce bien le cas ? La question fait débat.
Predicting Bluesky’s Scale with Jaz
Bluesky has been on a roller coaster of growth for over a year. From the early days of figuring out a new distributed social protocol—AT protocol—to actually buildi…
Bluesky 2023 Moderation Report - Bluesky
We have hired and trained a full-time team of moderators, launched and iterated on several community and individual moderation features, developed and refined policies both public and internal, designed and redesigned product features to reduce abuse, and built several infrastructure components from scratch to support our Trust and Safety work.
Bluesky trust and safety is too important to be left to Bluesky
Bluesky is open about almost everything, except setting and enforcing their community guidelines. They have an opportunity to lead the Internet forward, but they need to start now.
This is a really insightful thread that points out some of the fundamental issues with the Bluesky community vs Bluesky as a decentralized protocol. This thread is also why I think it's a really smart move for Bluesky to appeal to fandoms... (cont.)
B. Prendergast
One of the Atmosphere’s big bets is that the next 100m users will be won by making decentralised tech + data sovereignty more compelling. I’m less than convinced. We may be solving problems only builders care about, while overlooking problems that actually make ordinary people choose a network.
Bluesky is not a social network or a product or a service, it is fundamentally a promise - a promise that you can decide — with others in your social geography — where you want to be in the digital world, and you don’t have to lose all of the bits that represent you in the process.
Aaron Ross Powell
Is Bluesky dying? Is it the community's fault? Should people here refrain from criticizing journalists who think J. K. Rowling might have a point? The thing is, it doesn't matter. Because the answer isn't to make Bluesky change. It's to take advantage of Bluesky's tech to build something else.
We need better ways to sell people on decentralization, AT Protocol, and Bluesky than telling them open networks mean they won't have to suffer through losing yet another platform to an Elon Musk.
Decentralization is Insurance
www.aaronrosspowell.comi think, end of the day, the real problem with Bluesky is that most of its users are here *because* they want to be in a bubble. and they can tell themselves that it’s just about not being around Nazis it supporting Musk, and that’s part of it, but also there’s a palpable desire to be ensconced.
There's a pernicious belief, widely believed, that if a platform isn't on its way to becoming the biggest platform then it's on its way to failing. That belief is silly. So let's stop talking about Bluesky as if that belief is true.
We Needn't Have a One True Platform
www.aaronrosspowell.com
