Free Our Feeds ⇥ freeourfeeds.com

Aisha Malik, TechCrunch:

The initiative, Free Our Feeds, aims to protect Bluesky’s underlying technology, the AT Protocol, and leverage it to create an open social media ecosystem that can’t be controlled by a single person or company, including Bluesky itself.

The goal of the initiative is to establish a public-interest foundation that would fund the creation of new interoperable social networks that can run on the AT Protocol, and build independent infrastructure to support these new platforms, even if Bluesky were to end up in the hands of billionaires.

From the Free Our Feeds website:

Bluesky is an opportunity to shake up the status quo. They have built scaffolding for a new kind of social web. One where we all have more say, choice and control.

But it will take independent funding and governance to turn Bluesky’s underlying tech — the AT Protocol — into something more powerful than a single app. We want to create an entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart.

Signatories to this campaign include a mix of technologists, writers, business people, government officials, and celebrities. They have launched a $4 million GoFundMe campaign; among the top donors are Mutale Nkonde and Randy Ubillos.

People at Bluesky, like Paul Frazee, also seem enthusiastic:

📢 This is the big goal of Bluesky! 📢

Social networks should not be owned by own company! They should be a shared commons! Nobody should have sole power over them.

Bluesky itself is reportedly raising money right now, only a few months after a $15 million Series A. So much money so fast makes me worried about the company’s business long-term. But, while I admire the spirit of a crowd-funded alternative, I also question whether every contributor is fully aware of the risks. For its part, the organization says it will return pledges if it does not make its fundraising targets.

Will Oremus, Washington Post:

Mastodon’s [Eugen] Rochko told the Tech Brief on Monday that he was not consulted by the Free Our Feeds group and was not thrilled by its announcement.

“Personally, I think it’s a wasted opportunity to organize this huge effort with a $30 million fundraising goal just to rebuild … what already exists and flourishes today on ActivityPub,” the protocol that underlies Mastodon, Rochko said. He argued that Bluesky’s protocol, called AT Protocol, is designed in a way that gives Bluesky too much control over the system as a whole, meaning that “it will always be an uphill battle” to make it truly open.

Mind you, Mastodon instances are not invincible, either.

There is unlikely to be a singularly effective business model for these more distributed ideas about social networks. Some will likely become paid services; Bluesky is working on a subscription offering. Smaller Mastodon instances might survive on donations. Maybe there are simple ads on some others. The good news is that both AT Protocol and ActivityPub, as protocols, offer some degree of portability and self-sufficiency.