Why Bluesky not adding the federation systems that let users leave the Bluesky server and take their community to other hosts can lead to “enshittification”
- Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story. — Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
PluralisticCory Doctorow
Context & Ripple Effects
Bluesky had previously opened its network to independently run servers, making this critique less about whether federation exists in principle than whether communities can use it to make a credible exit from Bluesky-controlled space.
That distinction matters because Bluesky has already faced a tension between decentralized ambitions and centralized policy choices, including a moderation change that strained trust with Black users. The article frames portable communities as a check on the platform’s future leverage over users.
First-order effects
Communities hosted on Bluesky’s server lack the departure path described in the article, leaving their continuity and social ties more dependent on Bluesky’s product and policy decisions.
The critique raises the bar for Bluesky’s federation claims: opening servers does not, by itself, demonstrate that a community can leave without losing its audience or identity.
Second-order effects
Federated-social competitors can position community portability as a differentiator, while Bluesky faces pressure to explain how its AT Protocol design preserves user leverage in practice.
Moderation, verification, and community-governance decisions become more consequential when users cannot readily relocate together; Bluesky’s domain-verification impersonation issues show how implementation choices can affect trust beyond the protocol’s stated openness.
Third-order effects
If interoperable networks retain central control over the social graph and community identity, federation may function more as infrastructure openness than as a meaningful constraint on platform power.
The broader test for decentralized social products will be whether users can credibly exit with their relationships and communities—not simply whether third parties can operate compatible servers.
The trend: Decentralized social networks are being judged increasingly on practical portability and user governance, rather than protocol openness alone.
I agree with every word from Cory here. While I have chosen to be on Bluesky it won't be the only place you can follow me, and it won't be the *main* place I post, until federation is real — especially the ability to move from here to somewhere else while retaining followers. —…
I was about (I think) to jump into Bluesky more heavily, and then I read this by @pluralistic : — https://pluralistic.net/... I don't like the Mastodon UX very much but it feels like the right choice anyway.
> you can find another server, spend five minutes moving your account over, and you're back up and running on the new server: — This is a lie that everyone on the #Fediverse believes. — If an instance admin blocks you, you never get the chance to migrate. Your followers neve…
I expect to see a chorus of “well actually” skeets about this post by @pluralistic about Bluesky ( https://pluralistic.net/... but we have seen this movie before. Remember when the narrative about Twitter was that it was an “open” platform, circa 2007-08? …
So long as Bluesky can be a trap, I won't let myself be tempted.' — Bluesky and enshittification / Cory Doctorow — great piece + perfect timing as well [embedded post]
Appreciate the kind words about me from my old friend @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy here, but I think he's misunderstood the architecture of @atproto.com. The system is absolutely building in Ulysses Pacts and you can exit Bluesky infra while staying in contact. — pluralistic.n…
I agree with Cory Doctorow on Bluesky. I've been saying the same thing, more politely, for a while. Maybe they'll listen, or maybe their business model is to sell their user base, as Twitter did. pluralistic.net
The greatest trick Bluesky has pulled is building decentralization in a manner that the decentralization is hidden. It's mostly hidden from people who don't care (which is great). But sometimes it's even hidden from those who do care. [embedded post]
The confusion, I think stems from people internalizing “decentralized” to mean “federated.” But ATproto thinks of decentralized more like the web is decentralized, not that you have to pick your own feudal lord.
Cory Doctorow wrote a blog post explaining (again) why he does not trust Bluesky. I think he has not spent any time learning how Bluesky works, and he's trusting second hand information and his own (understandable) prejudices. I've seen others do the same. Depressing. pluralis…
I'm normally on the same page as Doctorow but his breathless statement of how Mastodon is superior chafes. — “you can easily... go to another server, and everyone you follow and everyone who follows you will move over...” — He completely ignores the Fediblock side of the equa…
I feel like some AP-focused people are kind of still waiting for Bluesky to finish and launch something they were building, not having noticed that they already did a while ago, it just doesn't look like they were expecting.
This is a good reminder of why BlueSky is just a port in a storm - not really a final destination. For the record, I don't care so much about the permanence of the ephemeral, but many people seem to tie their lives to social media, so Cory's reasoning needs to be understood.
“A federation of multiple servers, each a peer to the other, has been on Bluesky's roadmap for as long as I've been following it, but they haven't (yet) delivered it. (...) I don't know why Bluesky hasn't added the federation systems that would enable freedom of exit to its serv…
Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread). NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT. Inside: Bluesky and enshittification; and more! Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/... #Pluralistic 1/ [image]
I agree with Cory Doctorow on Bluesky. I've been saying the same thing, more politely, for a while. Maybe they'll listen, or maybe their business model is to sell their user base, as Twitter did. https://pluralistic.net/...