Musk’s chief concern will probably be whether or not he can align his philosophical affection for decentralization with the necessity to flip Twitter right into a worthwhile enterprise. He has beforehand expressed a want to open source the Twitter algorithm within the identify of transparency, however ceding management of the algorithm (the mechanism by which individuals are saved on the platform) can be one other step fully, and certainly a catastrophe for promoting income.

Musk would possibly use Bluesky expertise to partially notice his ambition to show Twitter into “X, the everything app”—a sort of super-app that blends social media with funds and different utilities, just like WeChat. Although the AT Protocol doesn’t use blockchain, it is ready to “integrate with cryptocurrencies,” Graber has previously said, which suggests Bluesky may assist assist the funds side of the imaginative and prescient. But once more, that is all dealing within the hypothetical.

Although loads of questions dangle over the implementation, Bluesky isn’t alone in pondering that society would profit from a extra decentralized social media ecosystem, with much less energy pooled within the fingers of a cash-motivated minority.

Evan Henshaw-Plath, the primary worker of Odeo (which made Twitter), runs a “peer-to-peer social network” known as Planetary that shares loads of widespread floor with Bluesky; each try to extend transparency round algorithms and provides folks management of their private information.

Henshaw-Plath predicts that Twitter will experiment closely with Web3 and crypto-related initiatives beneath Musk, no matter whether or not Bluesky finally ends up taking part in a starring function. “I’m not sure that’s good,” he says, “but it’s definitely where most of the big changes will be.”

Henshaw-Plath additionally says the acquisition would possibly enhance the probabilities of Bluesky securing extra funding since Twitter is now not “constrained by Wall Street,” and suspects that Dorsey would possibly return to Twitter in some capability beneath Musk.

Once the AT Protocol is up and operating, the goal is to allow a degree of interplay between Planetary and Bluesky networks, says Henshaw-Plath, making a type of coalition motivated by the shared want to tip the stability of energy in favor of customers.

This can be the ambition of Stani Kulechov, the creator of Lens Protocol, an identical undertaking that depends on customers self-hosting their profiles to create decentralization—an alternative choice to Bluesky’s cloud-based mannequin. He says this method “enables people to own their social capital” when it comes to each their content material and viewers, and ensures social profiles are “always in your custody and control.”

But whereas efforts to reduce firms’ management over the best way folks talk must be celebrated, there are short-term risks that have to be taken into consideration, says Brewster Kahle, creator of the Internet Archive and the Internet Hall of Fame. “If decentralization brought local control to more people in how they build their communities, that would be a good thing,” says Kahle. But the priority is {that a} lack of readability over the mechanics of moderation beneath this new mannequin would possibly result in the type of “free-for-all hellscape” Musk says he’s decided to keep away from. “In the short term, decentralization could mean there is no content moderation or spam controls at all, giving a louder megaphone to a few,” Kahle provides.

For this motive, Kahle says getting the expertise proper is all-important, however there are “warning signs of simplistic, absolutist thinking” amongst these making an attempt to innovate within the social media house that might jeopardize the entire endeavor.

It’s as much as Musk, the “free speech absolutist” and world’s richest particular person, to hold ahead the imaginative and prescient for a extra equitable, extra non-public, much less antagonistic social media expertise. If he decides to not, Bluesky should fly the nest searching for backing elsewhere.