Well, bluesky isn’t the fediverse, but the point stands.
Part of their marketing seems to be to create confusion about it. Bluesky uses the language and values of the fediverse to promote what is essentially another closed network. Meta is also doing this with Threads. Bluesky seems like a chill place and a lot of decent people seem to be very happy there, and they provide a lot more user controls than other networks, so the comic definitely still works.
It sort of depends on how you define fediverse. If you mean things using the ActivityPub protocol and are federated with Mastodon, Lemmy, etc. then no, it’s not part of the fediverse. If you mean anything using federated technology then you could possibly include it. https://docs.bsky.app/docs/advanced-guides/federation-architecture It uses something called AT instead of ActivityPub. I’m not personally aware of any other services or instances using it, but I also didn’t look very hard.
Edit: I learned that the term AT Protocol uses for their version of fediverse is “atmosphere”. So I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s part of the fediverse, but the context of the usage matters.
Right, but you can’t run your own instance so there’s nothing to federate with.
You’re correct. But blue sky does support federation, just not the same protocol as the fediverse, right?
BlueSky does not support federation in any way that we understand the word.
It is 100% reliant on the corporate server(s). They do offer a way to host your own data, which solves a singular problem with corporate media, which seems to be what they mean when they promote it “supporting federation.” Is also has an open codebase, which is something.
