When BlueSky CEO Jay Graber took the stage at SXSW this week, she was able to tease Mark Zuckerberg without mentioning meta at all. Her black t-shirt was decorated with black text stretched over her chest and sleeves, similar to the style of the t-shirt worn by the billionaire founder at last year’s event. Glover’s shirt was declared in Latin, Mundus Sign Caesaribus. Or “The World Without Caesar”
At Bluesky, users expressed their excitement about Glover’s T-shirts, and the platform decided to sell replicas to raise funds for its developer ecosystem.
The $40 shirt available in size S-XL sold out in about 30 minutes.
Zuckerberg elicited a comparison between himself and the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. Certain shirts on Glover refer to Aut Zuck Aut Nihil, or “Zuck or Nothing.” It nods to the automatic caesar aut nihil of Latin phrases, suitable for the regime of Roman leaders. (Yes, it’s strange that Zach is out of the way to compare himself to a violent dictator.)
Although small compared to the empire of meta, Bluesky’s decentralized open source infrastructure imagines a form of social media where individual executives do not hold all their power.
This creates opportunities for developers to contribute to the growth of the platform. So Glover’s shirts aren’t just swipes at a much larger competitor. It represents the spirit that Bruski is about to live in.
“If a billionaire went in and bought a blue ski, or took over that, or if tomorrow they decided to change things in a way that people really didn’t like, they could fork and move on to another application,” Graber said on SXSW. “Network already has applications that provide another way to view the network. Or you can build a new network, so openness ensures you have the ability to always migrate to new alternatives.”
Source link
