It is owned and will be driven by a private company and it’s desire for profitability, ActivityPub is an open standard that has been around for ~5 years and battle tested and already in use across different platforms.
As for why people might want to use it instead of ActivityPub, I think it's just... different from ActivityPub. Even though ActivityPub is an available option I don't see why it should be the last word.
Bluesky's answer is this
> Account portability is the major reason why we chose to build a separate protocol. We consider portability to be crucial because it protects users from sudden bans, server shutdowns, and policy disagreements. Our solution for portability requires both signed data repositories and DIDs, neither of which are easy to retrofit into ActivityPub. The migration tools for ActivityPub are comparatively limited; they require the original server to provide a redirect and cannot migrate the user's previous data.
> Other smaller differences include: a different viewpoint about how schemas should be handled, a preference for domain usernames over AP’s double-@ email usernames, and the goal of having large scale search and discovery (rather than the hashtag style of discovery that ActivityPub favors).
Not to be overly cynical, but I just don't care. Things change. When mega-corps and investors come knocking with 10-figure checks... 99.9% of humans will cash out. It's human nature. I've invested my time and energy in many things that have been taken over and destroyed by bad/incompetent actors, virtually all of which had promising starts, or I wouldn't have gotten involved.
I can’t predict the future. We may screw it up. I’m trying to protect the community from us if we do.
Page and Brin explicitly spelled out how advertising could change the incentives of a search engine. That didn't stop them from selling out immediately and letting the VCs install a CEO to 'businessify' the company.
I think this will have the opposite effect. Account portability means that being banned on one site can ban you on another if you try to use the same ID. Being persistently recognized across accounts seems like a net-negative for all of these things.
Mastodon is worse because your data is in the server owner’s hands. At least with Bluesky your identity and server are separate so you still have your data.
I imagined trying to explain to my mom why she'd have to signup for Mastadon again because the server she signed up with is gone or she got on one of the massive blacklists for engaging with the 'wrong' accounts.
"We already have a protocol."
"I don't know about this new upstart's motives."
I think it's good to have competing protocols at first. Platforms will eventually consolidate on one for a while like they did AP until something new comes along. I know the BlueSky people considered building on AP, so I'm curious to hear what it lacked that they think they can improve on.
It could be that some new platform enabled by that new protocol drives a transition away from AP the way Mastodon did with OStatus.
I imagine that that's the exact reason why for example advertisers will opt for bluesky over mastodon immediately, under the assumption that the reach would be the same.