Disclosure: I’m on the board of Bluesky, so feel free to take as many grains of salt as you want in reading it, even though part of this is cheering on a new entrant looking to build an alternative…

There’s been some debate over the last year or so regarding Bluesky and how decentralized it really is. There has also been a growing fear that “enshittification is inevitable.” Or, worse, that an “evil billionaire” might take it over and ruin it the way other platforms have been ruined.

But I think it’s important to understand that Bluesky has, effectively, created a technological poison pill: by building on an open protocol, ATprotocol, the system itself can be rebuilt outside of Bluesky, but in a way where everyone can continue to communicate, and that creates incredible incentives that undermine any evil billionaires, and would actually punish Bluesky (or anyone else!) should they try to enshittify.