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It would be either stupid or a total lie to say they wouldn't consider it. Many forget that eve if something is free to use money for maintenance, improvements and so-on needs to come from somewhere.

💯 This thread me trying to make a balanced/measured & hopefully educational take on one aspect of the likely future of bsky. There are a lot of the usual bsky power-zealots I've seen here chest-thumping about how "there are no ads", yada yada yada and as can be seen, time will tell...

The fact is, it's VERY early days for bsky. What it will become, and how it will get there, is still mostly unknown. But as you said, money's gotta come from somewhere. Bottom line. Yep, ads are probably inevitable. But that doesn't mean the network will become "bad" for most.

But we've been saying this for months now. We knew ads had to come. How else could they afford to keep going? VC propped them up, now they must make VC-level returns. If there was a super magical way of monetization without ad networks, we'd know by now. Ads are coming, but ya know what?

Ads doesn't mean the network will necessarily "enshittify". Sure, ads aren't "ideal", but it isn't a death knell. Sure, ads *probably* means there's some icky privacy stuff going on, but ya get what ya pay for right? Honestly, bsky can still be a great place to socialize.

Even if you have to scroll past an ad every 10 posts. If the bsky team is committed, they can make bsky great in spite of the necessary evil that is ads. They were never going to get meaningful uptake in paid subs after all, and forget about their domain selling biz.