Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people posting about #FreeOurFeeds, usually with a link to the GoFundMe page—sometimes without even mentioning the mission statement on their website.
I get it; breaking free from billionaire-controlled platforms is a solid goal. But I can’t help wondering why the focus is on Bluesky instead of supporting open-source projects that already use a W3C-standardized protocol. Their statement about ActivityPub doesn’t sound all that committed either and honestly, having mostly corporate types as custodians doesn’t exactly put me at ease.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid, to be clear, this isn’t me criticizing the at proto itself - it’s more about the bigger picture.
We’re not going to escape toxic capitalism by throwing money at directors and lawyers.
It reminds me of something from a project by some hacker legends:
"When the Internet was new, it felt like a vast, open expanse full of possibilities. Now it’s been swallowed up by commercialization, with users—and their data—turned into the currency that drives it."
(I paraphrased this—sorry if that’s out of line or misrepresents your stance on #FreeOurFeeds—but it really sums up how I feel.)
Even if it’s not directly related, that sentiment perfectly captures where my head is at with all this.
