"Convince a HN user that a corporation with the ability to cut you off from your feed sources for more profit won't do exactly that and just because they use something decentralised-ish today doesn't mean they have to keep using that thing if they don't want to" challenge (difficulty: impossible)
It's not just a technical restriction though. It's also a legal restriction. Bluesky PBLLC is a public benefit corporation and they are at least in moderate part beholden to their charter.
More importantly, their initial investment contract requires them to further the decentralisation of social media and exposes them to legal consequences should they deviate from that mission.
Those combined make it effectively impossible for them to lock in bluesky. Doing so would require technical changes that would be under no uncertain terms against the charter of the company and against the terms of the investment contracts that initially funded the company. It's a poison pill that would kill the company and destroy any "shareholder value" the moment they try to lock down the service or lock in the users.
You aren't going to see them try this type of brazen lock-in because it'd be explicitly harmful to every investor/VC and saddle the company in legal hell until it smoulders into ash.
Bluesky/atproto is still very early/very young but the general theme is to focus on the UX and ergonomics to make decentralisation viable without forcing the user to be technical enough to care about it.
i.e. The end goal is that people should be able to say "fuck bluesky", click a button, wait for a loading bar to finish, and continue using bluesky without using bluesky PBLLC stuff.
To be clear we are not at this point yet and bluesky PBLLC is not suddenly hostile yet either. Triage is in order of priorities so some more important UX aspects are being handled first.
My personal prediction is that this should be a solved problem within less than a year but of course we'll see.
> or if you get banned from the PLC directory
This is technically true (for did:plc users) but this isn't a thing that's happened in the past and in the event it happens in the future (or even is seriously discussed in the future), did:plc will be in a substantially different situation than it is currently and the community should be situated by then to handle a federated or coordinated PLC directory.
1. https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/adversarial-pds-migrat...
Yes, that's as simple as an IP address check, since they own all of it. Could alternatively be a password (bearer token).
> And Bluesky wouldn't likely stop existing altogether,
In fact, the change would be noticed by almost nobody, because 99.9% of users would still see 99.9% of their following (including 100% of the ones who populate the default feed) and would have to go far out of their way to see any change.
> There would be time when we realize that's happening to get another AppView up and running. There are arguably enough resources in either the ATproto dev community or other funding sources that another AppView could pop up within a week or two, and be maintained by the community for months without issue. And Bluesky wouldn't likely stop existing altogether, so people would log into Bluesky, see the news (or hear it elsewhere), and see people talking about how to get access to your account.
All irrelevant since it wouldn't have the content and people go there for the content. Views go where the content is.
> some copies of the entire network exist in the community
All irrelevant since it wouldn't have the new content posted after the block and people go there for the new content. New views go where the new content is.
> and some seriously pissed off community members who would now want to do everything they can to take up the mantle temporarily
Yes, exactly like the people who were pissed off at Twitter so they started Mastodon. Made literally no difference to Twitter. Most of those people even remained on Twitter and posted as much on Twitter as on Mastodon. Because views go where the content is. Thinking anything else is wilful delusion.
> Soon Bluesky the app, as well as Instagram and Twitter, would be flooded with tutorials of how to recover your accounts
Why recover? If you're part of the 99.9%, nothing changed for you.
> and migrate to another PDS.
I have no doubt there would be a flood of tutorials of how to make sure that only 0.1% of former Bluesky users will ever see your tweets, but nobody will follow that tutorial because they don't want to make sure that only 0.1% of former Bluesky users will ever see their tweets.
> If your point is that we'd lose at least half of the users of Bluesky
0.1% would be lost.
> But ATproto would be just fine
but completely useless, since its main use case is getting Bluesky feeds and that would be switched off
> and if people want to get their data back they likely can
This is nobody's goal. People log into Bluesky to see tweets from the people and topics they follow, not to "get their data".
Secondly, while you're right that most people don't have copies of their repos, some copies of the entire network exist in the community, as well as copies of the PLC Directory. Within a couple weeks we would have community run versions of the AppView, PDSs, Relays, and PLC, and some seriously pissed off community members who would now want to do everything they can to take up the mantle temporarily. Soon Bluesky the app, as well as Instagram and Twitter, would be flooded with tutorials of how to recover your accounts and migrate to another PDS.
If your point is that we'd lose at least half of the users of Bluesky, then yea probably. But ATproto would be just fine, and if people want to get their data back they likely can, as long as they can stomach a little work. And that process is getting easier all the time.