The claimed reason for that is to highlight “referrer” links for the sites people go to from bsky.
My understanding is that if you click like https://www.themarysue.com/ the website operators would see a “feddit.org” or “lemmy.world” referer if you’re using a web browser and don’t have a defeating option enabled, but not if your browser is locked down or you use an app. The immediate redirects, however, do consistently show in the web site’s access logs.
It’s possible bsky could fuck around with this in the future, but doing so risks just sending users to a pseudo-fork like blacksky.
but doing so risks just sending users to a pseudo-fork like blacksky.
I think if there’s anything we’ve learned at this point, it’s that it’s extremely hard to get users to leave a platform they have connections on. That’s always the plan.
That’s why bsky’s pseudo-federation isn’t as big a deal as some ActivityPub boosters claim.
As I understand it, if lemmy.world shuts down or starts demanding cash my only resource would be the same as if Facebook decides I’m too critical of billionaires – start all over elsewhere with a new account. Sure, I could get close to the same experience with a different node, but I’d be a brand new account with no history. I might as well go someplace else entirely.
Bsky’s “portable user” idea fixes that. There are accounts my bsky account follows who switched to blacksky, and if they hadn’t said they’d changed I wouldn’t have noticed. The essential identity of their account shifted almost seamlessly, and they “federate” with everyone else, aside that their appview shows accounts that bsky’s ordinary moderation hides.
I don’t have any illusions about how altruistic the cryptobro VC’s are. But the entirely of their value proposition is that “leaving bsky” should be about as painless as porting your number from Verizon to AT&T.
The claimed reason for that is to highlight “referrer” links for the sites people go to from bsky.
My understanding is that if you click like https://www.themarysue.com/ the website operators would see a “feddit.org” or “lemmy.world” referer if you’re using a web browser and don’t have a defeating option enabled, but not if your browser is locked down or you use an app. The immediate redirects, however, do consistently show in the web site’s access logs.
It’s possible bsky could fuck around with this in the future, but doing so risks just sending users to a pseudo-fork like blacksky.
I think if there’s anything we’ve learned at this point, it’s that it’s extremely hard to get users to leave a platform they have connections on. That’s always the plan.
That’s why bsky’s pseudo-federation isn’t as big a deal as some ActivityPub boosters claim.
As I understand it, if lemmy.world shuts down or starts demanding cash my only resource would be the same as if Facebook decides I’m too critical of billionaires – start all over elsewhere with a new account. Sure, I could get close to the same experience with a different node, but I’d be a brand new account with no history. I might as well go someplace else entirely.
Bsky’s “portable user” idea fixes that. There are accounts my bsky account follows who switched to blacksky, and if they hadn’t said they’d changed I wouldn’t have noticed. The essential identity of their account shifted almost seamlessly, and they “federate” with everyone else, aside that their appview shows accounts that bsky’s ordinary moderation hides.
I don’t have any illusions about how altruistic the cryptobro VC’s are. But the entirely of their value proposition is that “leaving bsky” should be about as painless as porting your number from Verizon to AT&T.
AP accounts are also portable…