alt Hacker NewsThe distinction is that Mastodon doesn't have to grow, and Bluesky does. There's an extent to which Bluesky is viable because its venture-funded owner pays for the infrastructure it operates on (Mastodon communities generally have to stand on their own two feet). If there's no path for Bluesky to grow into a viable business on its current financial runway, the funding for the infrastructure will end.
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ATProto infrastructure is mostly open and there are folks operating pieces of it independently even if the landscape is dominated by the Bluesky PBC. It's true that Mastodon grew bottom-up without centralized funding so the shuttering of the PBC will be a big deal for the AT ecosystem but it's all independently doable.
We already have others running infrastructure as well so if bsky goes away the platform can survive
I imagine the ATProto infrastructure would survive. Declining activity would be bad for BlueSky, but running a firehose is not that expensive. Many people could fund it themselves. Also, it would get cheaper to run as traffic declines.
Also, the firehose is not strictly necessary either if you’re willing to give up seeing replies from anyone, anywhere and just see the feeds you subscribe to, like an RSS reader.
The hard part is moderation and keeping up with changes in regulations, not the infrastructure itself. Also, continued funding for new development is good. I’m interested in seeing what the permissioned data proposal [1] turns into.
[1] https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0016-p...