When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

It’s really impressive how well Bluesky is performing. It really feels like a throwback to older social media platforms with its simplicity and lack of dark-patterns. I’m concerned that all the great work on the platform, protocol, etc won’t shine in the long term as they eventually need to find a revenue source.

Absolutely. The profit motive is the root of most evil. It is a shame that so many are trained to believe it is the only motive available.

I completely agree with this... but without profit, people can't get paid, and they'll stop building. I do hate this incredibly need for growth, of course, but financial growth is necessary to pay people and give them raises and allow them to have upward mobility at the company.

I hope Bluesky is able to find a model that works for them AND for consumers. (I do know it's an open protocol, so it'll live on without Bluesky itself! However, as this post shows, it's a lot of work to build on the prototype... so if not them, who? And if someone else, how will they become sustainable?)

On the other hand, running something like BlueSky is not terribly expensive. A foundation with a reasonable endowment can do that indefinitely.

Initially, it can be funded by selling tools that do analytics or by donations (like Wikipedia).