This is a followup to my post suggesting that Bevy consolidate its microblogging presence to Bluesky, which is currently spread out across X, Mastodon, and Bluesky. I also strongly encouraged the community to do the same, for both practical and ideological reasons. If you haven’t already, go read that post (and the responses).

Our decision is to stay on both Bluesky and Mastodon for now, while dropping X support. I still strongly believe that further consolidation should be our goal, but I concede that the jury is still out on Bluesky vs Mastodon … that particular decision needs a bit more bake time. I concede that the realities of the Bluesky implementation are currently suboptimal. We have good reason to believe they will get there, but I understand and respect peoples’ desire to wait and see.

The response was largely as expected. Many people are on board, but a variety of concerns were expressed, which I will do my best to address (or at least cover) now. The concerns coming from people varied by platform:

Concerns from X users

This move is too political

I received a number of comments (exclusively on, or in defense of X) accusing me of being “overly political”. First, I think it is impossible to run a project while also being completely apolitical. Interacting with people (and running a huge project that consists of and markets itself to people), is politics. If you don’t believe that, I encourage you to ponder that question for a bit (ask yourself why I might think that) and if you are still dubious, we can argue about it.

That being said, I believe the people making these accusations are accusing me of making this decision as a response to the specific politics of the moment (X is increasingly right leaning, Bluesky is increasingly left leaning). I will admit to being left-leaning personally, but the argument I provided for moving is intentionally decoupled from that, and I agree that a project like Bevy should generally not explicitly bias against specific political groups (especially something as large and nebulous as “the right”). I assert that my argument should appeal to people regardless of their political agenda. If it does not, I encourage you to consider whether it is you that is politically compromised.

To re-summarize my argument (but please read my previous post in detail):

1. I believe strongly in “community”. It is very hard to build a community when there are hard walls between everyone. I believe a large part of Bevy’s success (both technically and socially) is that we have “one place” for each thing (Github for development work, Discord for real time communication, and for a long time Twitter for microblogging). I believe the “3 separate microblogging worlds” situation is actively impeding our ability to come together as a community. I also believe that is true outside of our community. I don’t want to (and dont) check three apps every day. I don’t think anyone else does either. If you stop and consider the consequences of this, it is a big problem, not just for projects like Bevy, but for everyone.
2. Assuming the goal is consolidation, we should pick the platform that best serves us.
3. We should pick a platform that is federated, where you have ownership and autonomy over your identity and your audience. Social media should not be own-able by a single group or person. Social media is serious business. It ties directly to human rights and business outcomes. It shouldn’t be in anyone else’s control but yours. This is a political opinion, but it should appeal to the left and the right equally.
4. Bluesky, when considered holistically on its technical, ethical, and “audience size” merits, “wins” from my perspective (see my previous post).

I also made an additional (admittedly minor) point that managing posts across 3 platforms introduces additional daily overhead (currently “paid” by me). This is not the primary issue, just another consideration on the pile.

None of these arguments are about “boosting or alienating a political side”, and that is not my motivation. This problem transcends left/right politics, and should speak equally to everyone.

You should go where the people are, and the people are on X

I think it is pretty clear to everyone right now that the “microblogging space” is up for grabs. Everyone should be carefully evaluating what they want the future of the space to look like, and pick the platform most likely to get us there (weighing things like features, governance, and momentum).

Additionally, when considering the gamedev community, I think the “just follow the numbers” approach isn’t particularly clear. For example, a week ago I did a breakdown of “posts worth reposting from official Bevy accounts” and this was our breakdown: Bluesky 18 posts, Mastodon 7 posts, X 6 posts. From a “Bevy content perspective”, X is the least compelling platform.

Concerns from Mastodon users

Bluesky is run by a for-profit (American) company, which could do a “rug pull”

Bluesky is owned and operated by the Bluesky “public benefit corporation”. First, I give effectively zero weight to the “public benefit corporation” title, as it provides no real ch