Given that you have established that starting decentralized or not is irrelevant, what should we consider when assessing the decentralization status of a thing?
Incentives (and possibilities).
Any reasonable person can see that Bluesky will remain centralized forever because of identity centralization and data centralization, in fact it cannot be decentralized at all because the identity system is centralized by design (because they wanted to do a blockchain for key rotation but couldn't figure out how). All one can argue after that is that is that "it doesn't matter" because "login is easier".
While Nostr has much bigger chance of being decentralized, although it could also fall back into a "de facto Bluesky" mode and have its data all centralized in one place, but that would be a very unlikely hard failure edge case from which it could even recover later if developers wanted.
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The web was never centralized because anyone was always able to run the client or set up a new server without asking anyone. Without integrated identity or DRM there were no centralizing forces. Bluesky wants to be able to protect communities via "the right" moderation and identity management. This is core to the value of the platform, and also prevents it from ever being an open system. Free as in beer, not free as in speech
>Incentives (and possibilities).
That one, yes, very much agree. On identity, I think the question is if they spin out the did:plc directory into whatever ICANN like body they are in talks with, is that a meaningful change or not?
For me, the vast majority of people who care about ownership in some sense will see that as "good enough" and it will also be healthy for the internet in general. So if they do that—and again the other week they came out and announced the talks have entered some kind of a late stage—then did:plc is basically okay in my opinion. Yes still centralised, but I'm cool with ICANN or whoever else being that centre, so for me that's a meaningful move.
I'm guessing you see this ICANN solution as just moving the centralisation around and therefore not so meaningful, doesn't pass the not your keys test.
Anyway not much more to say about that until they complete the move and it's clear how things will look.
Also Blueskys mission has changed. It is no longer a "decentralized" platform, it is now a platform for left wing refugees exiting Twitter. I'm guessing 99% of the new Bluesky users don't know, understand or care about decentralization.
