Today’s links Bluesky and enshittification: No one is the enshittifier of their own story. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Hoisted from the comments: Smart stuff from readers. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Bluesky and enshittification (permalink) I would like to use Bluesky. They’ve done a bunch of seriously interesting technical work on moderation and ranking that I truly admire, and I’ve got lots of friends there who really enjoy it. But I’m not on Bluesky and I don’t have any plans to join it anytime soon. I wrote about this in 2023: I will never again devote my energies to building up an audience on a platform whose management can sever my relationship to that audience at will: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/06/fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again/ When a platform can hold the people you care about or rely upon hostage – when it can credibly threaten you with disconnection and exile – that platform can abuse you in lots of ways without losing your business. In other words, they can enshittify their service: https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/17/hack-the-planet/#how-about-a-nice-game-of-chess I appreciate that the CEO of Bluesky, Jay Graber, has evinced her sincere intention never to enshittify Bluesky and I believe she is totally sincere: https://www.wired.com/story/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-wont-enshittify-ads/ But here’s the thing: all those other platforms, the ones where I unwisely allowed myself to get locked in,…Pluralistic: Bluesky and enshittification (02 Nov 2024)