It's a non-default choice by the user to require login to view. It's quite rare to find users who do that, but if I were Rob Pike I'd seriously consider doing it too.

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bangaladore 3 hours ago | parent [-]

A platform that allows hiding of text locked behind a login is, in my opinion, garbage. This is done for the same reason Threads blocks all access without a login and mostly twitter to. Its to force account creation, collection of user data and support increased monetization. Any user helping to further that is naive at best.

I have no problem with blocking interaction with a login for obvious reasons, but blocking viewing is completely childish. Whether or not I agree with what they are saying here (which, to be clear I fully agree with the post), it just seems like they only want an echochamber to see their thoughts.

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danabramov 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Here is the raw post on the AT Protocol if you want to access it directly: https://pdsls.dev/at://robpike.io/app.bsky.feed.post/3matwg6...

>This is done for the same reason Threads blocks all access without a login and mostly twitter to. Its to force account creation, collection of user data and support increased monetization.

I worked at Bluesky when the decision to add this setting was made, and your assessment of why it was added is wrong.

The historical reason it was added is because early on the site had no public web interface at all. And by the time it was being added, there was a lot of concern from the users who misunderstood the nature of the app (despite warnings when signing up that all data is public) and who were worried that suddenly having a low-friction way to view their accounts would invite a wave of harassment. The team was very torn on this but decided to add the user-controlled ability to add this barrier, off by default.

Obviously, on a public network, this is still not a real gate (as I showed earlier, you can still see content through any alternative apps). This is why the setting is called "Discourage apps from showing my account to logged-out users" and it has a disclaimer:

>Bluesky is an open and public network. This setting only limits the visibility of your content on the Bluesky app and website, and other apps may not respect this setting. Your content may still be shown to logged-out users by other apps and websites.

Still, in practice, many users found this setting helpful to limit waves of harassment if a post of theirs escaped containment, and the setting was kept.

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csomar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

According to the parent, the platform gives the content creator the choice/control. So no, it's not garbage and that's the correct way to go about it.

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bangaladore an hour ago | parent [-]

Disagree. It gives the user the illusion that the purpose is to protect them somehow, but in reality it is solely there to be anti-user and pro lock in to social media walled gardens.

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0xCAP 34 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

It's also a way to prevent LLMs to get trained on their data without their consent.

	▲	danabramov 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		That's not correct. The setting is mostly cosmetic and only affects the Bluesky official app and web interface. People do find this setting helpful for curbing external waves of harassment (less motivated people just won't bother making an account), but the data is public and is available on the AT protocol: https://pdsls.dev/at://robpike.io/app.bsky.feed.post/3matwg6... So nothing is stopping LLMs from training on that data per se.

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csomar 17 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a non-default setting. So no. I am not sure what you disagree with exactly? We can call out BlueSky when they over-reach, but this is simply not it.

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znpy 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

But bluesky is garbage.

	▲	archagon 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		No, Bluesky is not garbage.