Now Bluesky's Jay Graber is simply lying.
“If a billionaire came in and bought Bluesky and took it over, or I decided tomorrow to change things in a way that people didn’t really like, then they could fork off and go on to other applications.”
https://observer.com/2025/03/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-wants-world-without-caesars/
Of course, this makes absolutely no sense, but tech media dutifully just prints it.
What does "fork off and go on to other applications" mean?
What is it she is even saying?
Getting really tired of this gaslighting BS.
Let's get real. If a billionaire comes in and buys #Bluesky, the 30 million users who have fled there from other toxic platforms will be stuck on the billionaire Bluesky toxic platform. Sure, they can "fork off" and make a Mastodon account on the Fediverse, but that's their only option.
This 'billionaire proof' marketing campaign of hers is not only disingenuous, it is false advertising, and should give everyone pause.
Instead of lapping up Jay Graber's nonsense, tech media should ask her some real questions:
Who owns #Bluesky?
Who and in what percentages?
Any outstanding debt or other convertible obligations?
What happened with the Bain Capital funding round announced in early January by Business Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/x-competitor-bluesky-valuation-new-funding-round-2025-1?op=1) valuing the company at $700M?
Did it close?
If so, how much was invested? Who were the investors?
"fork off and go on to other applications"
No.
It's "fuck off and go on to other applications"...
@lupus_blackfur my thoughts exactly, if I didn't knew better I would have thought "forking" was the new "frelling" or "fraking" to keep it scifi and PG13 for print...
@mastodonmigration
@lupus_blackfur @mastodonmigration
They're getting their stupid "language" from the "forking" emails DOGE sends to everyone now. Copycat. New corp-speak.
If Bluesky become a toxic billionnaire owned platform, the users will not flock to the fediverse, they will flock to whatever is the new "good" billionnaire owned platform that promise not to be "like the others"
Unfortunately you are probably right.
This is partly because the Fediverse is such a pain in the butt. I like Mastodon; I'm active on two instances every day. But boy is all this bridging and fencing annoying.
That's why Bluesky (where I have a third account) has surpassed Mastodon, in spite of the fact like Twitter, they refuse to let us fix typos, which irks the crap out of me.
Bridging and fencing?
@mastodonmigration @RustyRing @kingu "bridging and fencing" they don't enjoy fedi like it is and want a enshittifiable platform to interact with fedi
@Kuniti_shino @mastodonmigration @kingu
...which is the attitude that's keeping Mastodon down. Contempt for the goddam humans.
@RustyRing @kingu @mastodonmigration Yeah, I think this is fair. To tech people onboarding and using Mastodon probably seems innocuous but I think a lot of people find it onerous. I didn't find Mastodon so bad (although I lost my first account, I think the instance it was hosted on disappeared) but I wanted to try pixelfed as an alternative to instagram and it was a real ballache to get started. Just a bit of extra friction at every step.
@GeneralStrike @kingu @mastodonmigration
Exactly. "This user's whole life is on another instance; click here to see it." Click; nothing there. Or, for arcane reasons, the comm just doesn't show. Or I see something on an account that's on another server and "you gotta go home to be here." Semi-religious ceremony to render yourself ritually pure.
Look, all I want to do is talk to somebody.
To repeat what I said before, I like Mastodon, and I've learned to get along. But the engagement here not only isn't at Twitter levels – even now — it's not even at Bluesky levels, which is a younger service. And this is why.
In the states, people routinely flock to Baseball and Football teams, mostly owned by billionaires.
No one gives it a second thought.
They think they're rooting for the home team. They think it's "their" team.
Until the billionaire decides to move it to another city to make more money.
@mastodonmigration Fork Off made me giggle
I have a vague understanding of what a "fork" is in terms of software development, and with that context in mind it's a little bit funny
It is a cute play on words. She is a very charming person, and projects such sincerity, making her very convincing. The fact that what she is selling is complete hogwash is lost in the smokescreen.
Let's take her at her words though. Supposedly, the idea is that some billionaire buys #Bluesky and some users decide to "fork off" and somehow use the open source code (which may or may not be up to date) to make a competing social network platform. This is her definition of 'distributed'.
@mastodonmigration @Rana her job is to be charming and seemingly sincere, and to assure users that the inevitable Enshittification won't actually happen this time.
@Lazarou @mastodonmigration @Rana
Better tie yourself to the mast. 
@mastodonmigration Which is why I always have the future - and immediately dumping BS - in mind.
@mastodonmigration It's not a competitor, it's a substitute.
@mastodonmigration I don't expect any technology I'm using now to be the tech I'm still going to want 5 or 10 years from now, whether it's my PC, my GIS software, or my social network. If it is, great! If not, I'll adapt.
I happen to like it here *and* at Bluesky. I've conceded that I'm never going to get a majority of my connections onto Mastodon as it currently exists. I tried. I understand the issue isn't "What's wrong with them" but "What is keeping Mastodon from becoming mainstream?"
What about email?
@mastodonmigration What about email? I don't have the same email address that I had when I first started using email. I needed to change my address and inform all my contacts that my address changed. Even though the underlying protocol is the same.
But as I said, if I can use the same underlying technology as I did 10 years ago, great! But I'm not going to freak out if I need to move to something else.
@mastodonmigration "You should commit to a platform that you' find more difficult to figure out and less welcoming because another platform you like more may not be around in a few years" IMO is not a compelling argument for a lot of people. YMMV.
Clearly that is true, since people are in fact joining Bluesky in greater numbers.
Again, that doesn't address the false information that the Bluesky CEO is pitching about the platform being 'billionaireproof'.
@mastodonmigration I think it's the protocol that's billionaire-proof, not necessarily the specific implementation at Bluesky? I probably couldn't make my own fork there the way I could sign up for a service to create my own instance here. But it seems like it would be possible for people with more knowledge and resources.
Anyway, thanks for engaging. These days, I'm always happy for pleasant, non-hostile discussions with people I don't agree with 100%
@mastodonmigration A lot of people don't want to be yelled at if they don't CW posts about current events, or otherwise be scolded if they don't conform to the culture that long-time users believe is best. Culture matters. I nearly left after a bad experience on fosstodon before deciding to do my own instance - which is not without cost and takes a lot of effort to make sure you see what you want to see in the network. Most people won't do that to customize their experience.
All valid points. Do not see what that has to do with Jay Graber saying users can simply 'fork' off to other applications if a billionaire buys Bluesky when it simply isn't true.
Mastodon is certainly not perfect, but the fact that you could create your own instance when you were dissatisfied with your then current instance is pretty amazing, and a testament to what real 'decentralization' really involves.
@mastodonmigration It is amazing, and as I've said, I really like it here! But the average social media user is not going to put in the effort and pay the cost of doing that. It was a ton of work to get connected to what I want to see, and I still miss things on my own instance.
How much work would it be if someone really wanted to create a fork of Bluesky? I honestly don't know. I believe somewhere between "more than on Mastodon" and "not possible."
Most people here are quite happy with their chosen instance. Sorry you had difficulty. Fortunately you had the option of creating your own server.
This is not something that is possible with Bluesky. You can get lost in the technology discussions, but straight up there is no way to 'fork off.' That was the subject of the top post.
«most people» will go see a hockey match, or a football game, or baseball while a much smaller group will nerd their brains out at a d&d session. all good as long as they all enjoy what they are doing. but here we are, us, concerned about those «most people» not doing the d&d stuff AND those d&d folks not wanting to change their game in a way that would somehow lure all those «most people» from their football game? why the hell are we even doing this?
not only i don't give a sh*t about where those «most people» go if smth happens to bluesky — i would most probably end up binge blocking them anyway because they can't have a civilized conversation about when to cw or not to cw their opinions :-) just saying.
also, «most people» is an abstraction that sounds important while meaning exactly nothing. as someone has already noted here, it doesn't matter if a billionaire buys bs and locks «most people» in — they will just simply fail to notice it. until enough _individuals_ leave the new concentration camp and bang the door. gradually, «most people» will just dissolve into nothingness that it has always been, and some other group will be marked as «most people» because it's so confortable to use in conversations like this :-)
@smach @mastodonmigration A service might no longer be there in 5 years but a protocol sure is! Also, this is not about the users' vibe but if Bluesky is actually decentralized and billionaire-proof.
"Hi there"
We removed your account
BlueSky
@mastodonmigration I am not on bluesky and will not be for the simple fact it stores its data USA based. The States "tech genius" has been hacked the heck out of and he basically has access to everything. Thus everything is potentially open to everyone. IMO there us no future for any tech based in USA.
@mastodonmigration I would suggest substack.
@mastodonmigration People really do not want to give up on Capitalism. A world where they are guaranteed to never be able to own a yacht (because all the yachts have been repurposed as free ferries and whatnot) is more than they can handle thinking about.
@jpaskaruk @mastodonmigration Im wondering if im delusional thinking it’ll come, but visibly, we’re not quite there yet.
But at least, stocks are dirt cheap now (if you can afford a bank account, if you can afford to trade, if you already have paid for the required education to understand how all this works).
@EtherNRhum @mastodonmigration
Back when Tangent Animation still existed, I was paying into a pension which would have built up fast, and the people who set it up had all kinds of supports in place to get us started investing on the market, including a "play money" app that apparently tracked your play investments against the actual market in real time, so you could get the hang of it over time without losing your real shirt.
Company went under not long after they set that up cause projects yanked (should have diversified our clientele). When we start eating them, I call dibs on Netflix's rib meat.
@mastodonmigration This marketing ploy's been irking me a lot because it's not about who holds the whip (the billionaires), it's the whip itself (how social media is structured).
Kudos for Bluesky's feeds and content moderation, but I really hope the promise of federation is still a 'when,' not an 'if.'
"Hi there"
We removed your account.
@mastodonmigration i think she’s saying a toxic billionaire might buy bluesky so don’t waste your time and just go to mastodon now?
That's how it seems. She may be getting her user base prepared.
@mastodonmigration Gawd. My eyes can’t roll back far enough. 
@PamelaBarroway She may not be but we should be Casandraing the holy hell out of them. Most won’t listen but it’s always better to be in with the info early, The ones that don’t heat it now will have the information in the back of their mind when the time does come. . @mastodonmigration
@PamelaBarroway And we should do it in all that spare time we have. 
@mastodonmigration
Some of us (present company included) forked off from the start and care nothing for BS BS.
@mastodonmigration @bmacDonald94 I have wanted those people to fork off so badly lately.
@mastodonmigration One day this year, the people of Mastodon will be saying, "we told you so."
@mastodonmigration I suppose she was referring these things: 1) AT protocol docs are openly available, 2) there are plenty various public implementations of PDS, moderation/labeling services and apps (aka "views"). But of course it does not enough to make system billionaire-proof. These are just first steps, and making it billionaire-proof require transition to something like Linux Foundation, or making all that a set of IEEE/ANSI/W3C standards?
And sadly, it all very centralized 
@mastodonmigration I could cover plenty of technical details, but still AT protocol requires heavy centralized infrastructure of collecting and redistributing events from PDS to app-view. It is assumed to be centralized service that collects all events by this service to be shown to appviews.
ActivityPub and even Nostr is less centralized in this manner.
Having such centralized 'events collection and distribution service" - it means there is a huge cloud infrastructure paid by some billionaire.
Absolutely. Good summary.
Totally get the mumbo jumbo she is referring to, but to infer that a mythic potential born out of some open source documents and a fantasy vaporware marketing program constitutes "billionaire proofing" is simply dishonest.
@mastodonmigration Yes! This is much better way to say this mood I tried to "verbalize". Thanks!
She can go fork off, as far as I'm concerned.
@mastodonmigration "If you don't like it, GTFO" is what it sounds like.
How Muskesque.
@mastodonmigration he's using a Blockchain metaphore. He's comparing it to Bitcoin/Bitcoin cash split, that forked the Blockchain in two. You'd need to know the crypto lingo to catch that :)
Understood. And it is still nonsense in the context she uses it. Just spouting tech word salad does not make it any more true. It just bamboozles people.
Lying to placate users.
Nothing stopping Bluesky being Twitter Too. Some would say it's as inevitable as enshittification, which is already occurring.