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When Bluesky CEO Jay Grabertook the SXSW stagethis week , she make out to make fun of Mark Zuckerberg without mention Meta at all . Her black T - shirt was emblazoned with dim text stretching across the breast and sleeve , similar to the panache ofa T - shirt that the billionaire beginner woreat an effect last year . Graber ’s shirt declared in Latin , Mundus sine Caesaribus . Or , “ a world without Caesars . ”
On Bluesky , user express such excitation over Graber ’s T - shirt that the platform determine tosell replicasto rear money for its developer ecosystem .
The $ 40 shirt , usable in sizes S – XL , sell out in roughly30 minutes .
Zuckerberg has drawn comparisons between himself and the papistical dictator Julius Caesar — the particular shirt of his that Graber is cite saidAut Zuck aut nihil , or “ Zuck or nothing . ” It ’s a nod to the Latin phraseAut Caesar aut nihil , beseem of the romish leader ’s regime . ( Yes , it is weird that Zuck goes out of his way of life to compare himself to a trigger-happy authoritarian . )
Though it ’s bantam equate to Meta ’s empire , Bluesky ’s decentralized , unfastened source base imagines a form of social medium where individual executives do n’t take all the power .
It creates the opportunity for any developer to give to the platform ’s growth . So , Graber ’s shirt is n’t just a petty swipe at a much larger challenger — it correspond the ethos that Bluesky is trying to live up to .
“ If a billionaire hail in and buy Bluesky , or took it over , or if I decided tomorrow to change thing in a elbow room that people really did n’t like , then they could branch off and go on to another covering , ” Graber said at SXSW . “ There ’s already software in the web that give you another way to view the internet , or you could work up a new one as well . And so that openness guarantees that there ’s always the power to move to a new alternative . ”
