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Okay since it’s already lively day I’m going to do a thread on one big reason why I personally bother with open protocols, and that reason is: ✨enshittification✨ 1/6

Products get detached from their users as they settle into being businesses. They start looking for ways to cut costs and extract revenue. This often means losing interest in the day-to-day experiences of their communities. It’s a precarious situation. 2/6

We want to do right by yall, and that means being forward looking. Our culture doc includes the phrase “The company is a future adversary” to remind us that we won’t always be at the helm – or at our best – and that we should always give people a safe exit from our company 3/6

It’s weird at times to frame our priorities as protecting users from us, but that’s exactly what we’re trying to do. The Bluesky team is made up of users. None of us come from big tech companies. 4/6

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We all came together because we were frustrated by the experience of feeling helpless about how our online communities were being run. We don’t want to give that same feeling to other people now that we’re the builders. 5/6

When we build an open protocol, we’re giving out the building blocks. We want to start from the premise that we’re not always right or best, that when we are right or best then it might not last, and that communities should be empowered to build away from us. 6/6

Sometimes this can all feel very intangible and abstract, and for the average user the goal is to just feel like a good & usable network. But this is one big reason why we put all the Fancy Technology under the hood. Also I don't know how to count. 7/6

I wrote my PhD thesis on the importance of accounting for intangible value in a disaster management context. I'm here because I see ATprotocol/Bluesky as a place where intangible value might survive the 'enshittification' process. I see huge potential for this from a global resilience perspective.

This was an excellent post, but I have to say that over 20 years of cynicism about tech development makes me worry that a little bit of this is due to some projecting due to a future that you may already know is out of your control. Or soon could be. Cyndi's rule rules: "Money changes everything."