Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  ·  2 months ago
I guess #Bluesky must be in heavy fundraising mode by now if my math is in the right ballpark about how much they raised and their burn rate.

Will they be successful? At what valuation? An interesting question! I figure their valuation could be anywhere between $0 and a few billions or so.

Why $0? No business model, and no obvious one on the horizon. Intense competition with the new product of the biggest incumbent that's already at 20x their size.

Why a few billions? ... (cont'd)

+ -
Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  ·  2 months ago
Why might #Bluesky be worth a few billions? Decentralized social has the potential to "amazon" (here's a word you haven't heard in a while...) the trillion-dollar market cap social media platform market like Amazon "amazoned" Borders 25 years ago. In this thinking, it's completely early days and lack of biz model and current market shares don't matter.

Supporting evidence: Farcaster recently raised $150m at $1b valuation with far fewer users.

(cont'd)

+ -
+ -
Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  ·  2 months ago
@davepeck I can’t see the Farcaster thesis either unless one puts on some very rose colored glasses with big blinders on both sides. But I think it proves that decentralized social can be successfully pitched as a potentially really big thing.
Dave Peck
Dave Peck  ·  2 months ago
@j12t Yeah I can’t see the story either. (The tiny user numbers make it even more amusing to me.) I suppose confounding factor for farcaster is crypto. a16z is so… up the river on it.

I certainly hope we’ll see some more sensible investment in this space and at this scale down the road.

+ -
Johannes Ernst
Johannes Ernst  ·  2 months ago
Whichever the outcome, this outcome will have an impact on the Fediverse!

If #bluesky raises a ton, many other companies are going to get started and flood the space.

If they aren't very successful, the venture money will stay out of the space.

Which is something many people in the #Fediverse would prefer, I realize that. But whatever we all prefer, the impact will be felt.