I think it's safe to say that most people on this planet are growing up, to put it mildly, tired of the current billionaire managers of our social media ecosystem. X . Meta . TikTok . Social networks are no longer so interesting and useful.
However, a number of celebrities and famous former Twitter users are trying to “save social media from being taken over by billionaires.” . These people want to build a new social media ecosystem focused on social good rather than profit-driven incentives. .
Celebrities behind the project include actor Mark Ruffalo, actor/director Alex Winter and . Brian Eno is involved, as is Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia). The plan involves building new social media applications on top of the existing AT protocol, which is the decentralized framework on which Bluesky runs. This will supposedly give users significant control over their data, algorithms, and entire online experience.
“Over the past two decades, the world has descended into a situation where a handful of companies dictate everything we do on social media. Now, for the first time, we have the opportunity to rewrite the rules. Bluesky's core technology, the AT protocol, could offer a new path for social networking.” said Sherif El-Sayed-Ali, Executive Director .
There are some major obstacles here. Bluesky is still backed by venture capital, so the team has to raise money to ensure the underlying technology is taken “into an independent path so that the future of social media can be freed from the whims of any one company or group of billionaires.” »
The fund also needs money to begin building critical infrastructure. In total, the organization hopes to raise $30 million over the next three years. There's a GoFundMe right now . The initial funds will be used to create a public interest fund that will attempt to make Bluesky's “core technology completely resistant to billionaire takeover.”
Before you dismiss the idea as if it were a bunch of rich celebrities holding out a donation jar, let's remember that even the richest celebrities can't keep their finger on the pulse of the billionaires who control the levers of power. Mark Ruffalo, probably the most famous member of the group, is worth around $30 million, while Alex Winter is worth $4 million.
Elon Musk is worth $416 billion, while Mark Zuckerberg is worth close to $220 billion. Musk is worth, wait for it, about 14,000 times more than Ruffalo. The difference between millions and billions is quite serious.