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Hey #Socialcoop friends, a question: what would you think of us piloting a Personal Data Server for Bluesky under the co-op? No commitment, just an experiment.

Docs: https://atproto.com/guides/overview

Discussion with @robin @boris: https://bsky.app/profile/ntnsndr.in/post/3kl3hwzd5we2x

  • Love it, propose it in Loomio! (46%, 7 votes)
  • Meh I'm putting my concerns in the comments (53%, 8 votes)
15 voters. Poll end: 9 months ago

in reply to Nathan Schneider

strongly feel that we should stay away from supposedly open tech that is entirely controlled by the usual tech billionaires. Every time they claim to be reformed and doing something in the open they slowly pull back and enshittify, and lock us in and for some reason we always just fall for it again the next time they use a bunch of VC money to make some ostensibly open software that in reality they entirely controlled with no democratic input.
in reply to Nathan Schneider

initial response, "oh hell no" Of all the things we could do: support framasoft, help improve activity pub, support MayFirst.coop.... etc. why Bluesky?
in reply to Matt Noyes

@Matt_Noyes I would love to support all those and have tried several times to initiate proposals in #Socialcoop to support cooperative tech.

Bluesky is gaining a lot of traction, and I think it is worth experimenting with how far we can take co-op control in that protocol. If nothing else to understand whether the federation they propose involves real control.

in reply to Nathan Schneider

Definitely want to underscore the fact that Nathan and others have indeed pushed for Social.coop to support cooperative open source projects. The new Organizing Circle is getting itself organized but will organize a budget discussion so we can be strategic in this.
in reply to Matt Noyes

@Matt_Noyes it’s a genuine request if there is interest, because we know some people who are interested and setting up a new co-op is more work.

And by Bluesky, we mean #ATProtocol - running open source PDS server where user data is delegated for hosting.

I’ll add my interest: because I don’t think there is one open social protocol that will win and would like to share the experience of PDS hosting with an international group.

in reply to Boris Mann

@boris Like I said, my initial response. I am skeptical about social.coop putting any of our collective resources to that purpose, but I understand that people may be interested.
in reply to Matt Noyes

@Matt_Noyes @boris yeah! Maybe best for those of us who are curious to experiment and report back with more info.
in reply to Nathan Schneider

Hard no from me. There are so many other things we could put time and energy behind that are open/cooperative. If I wanted Jack Dorsey to make money off my data, I already know how to do that.
in reply to Nathan Schneider

Love u, but "Lol no." Nothing cooperative about atproto
in reply to jonny

on the other hand, i am curious about what it even means to run a PDS, if it has any impact - for good or ill, community identity or concentration of power - on your experience of the protocol. I think the design is for the answer to that to be "no," but then i would be curious why anyone would run one at all.
in reply to jonny

@jonny thanks for this. I have had trouble understanding the motive for operating a federated server on that network, which is why I was curious about trying. I appreciate your insight here.
in reply to Nathan Schneider

Id run an experimental one just to see what its actually like, same with trying to run a relay, but not with coop resources I dont think.

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