Arguably, Bluesky being spun off from Twitter and having Jack Dorsey as one of the founding members is a somewhat Meta-like advantage, in a sense of immediate legitimacy in the press and networking opportunities/connections in Silicon Valley. Mastodon had to start absolutely from scratch. I had zero connections to anyone important when I launched it. Bluesky also raised over $8M in venture capital funding, while Mastodon was being developed on a $0/mo budget for the first year of its existence, and something like $5000/mo for the next 5. Our current annual budget of around $500K still pales in comparison to the money Bluesky has at their disposal right now to spend on e.g. marketing. They also have the advantage of not really trying to do decentralization. That being said, venture capital money isn't free, while Mastodon's funding comes from the community with no strings attached, so in the long term, I believe in our approach.