How decentralized is Bluesky really?
This is a pretty great, long form post about the structure of Bluesky, and how it's largely kinda pretending to be decentralized at the moment. I'm not trying to make a dig at it. I've enjoyed the platform myself for a while, but it's good to learn more about how it actually works.
This article was shared on Mastodon via its author here.
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I'm staying on Lemmy and off Bluesky.
I seek and spread knowledge from/to helpful lemmings and not interested in another Twitter wannabe gossip app, hopping on the "decentralized" train to grain traction.
This gossip app is meant for artists and other internet celebrities that think they are cool making their opinions to be fact. Extreme left is insufferable right now as a moderate. They have tripled down in all the worst ways which makes it annoying and frustrating to ignore.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things. Since I jumped ship to lemmy I feel even less inclined to bother with anything else. However reddit was way better for certain stuff like artists or creators.
I take it you tried out bsky and had a bad experience…
Yes Ive been on bsky since early this year and really enjoyed it until everyone on the platform started kicking up dust over the election completely overreacting and spazzing out spewing the most idiotic things about identity politics, third party voters, trump being hitler, fascists it just lost all meaning. I used to be democrat and now consider myself moderate at this point and I just cant stomach following those kind of people anymore.
Not to mention childish adding labels on everyone and blocklists to decent people just completely power tripping cancel culture x10. Then all of a sudden I feel like its twitter all over again and I become incredibly annoyed at myself thinking it would ever change. Microblogging is so fucking stupid.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things.
People on Reddit do circlejerks about their feeling of "actually discussing real things", except it's only a feeling.
It's a bit like with printed media in societies that saw rapid growth of literacy, people literate in the first generation would trust anything printed as if it were solid fact. And many people still trust anything printed and kinda official as if it were fact and think that being critical of that is backwards and worth irony. It's really impossible to talk to such.
In this case - the Web has mostly moved to formats disadvantaging any exchange of normal texts, and things like Reddit (or Lemmy) seem, for people not used to that, automatically better for nuanced opinions. They are not.
Just like you can print any text, My Struggle and Elders of Sion and The Capital included, you can make any bullshit look appealing on Reddit with sufficiently eloquent or smart-looking text.
FFS, people actually reading books and writing something knew this since before Gutenberg. How did we even come to this miserable situation.
Reddit was hated and still is hated because people actually challenged eachothers views (mostly) constructively while also organizing and fighting for change when possible. Upvoting, downvoting, commenting, and engaging all equally mattered. Until one day spez and all the reddit mods decided to let their platform eat shit.
There were places that circlejerked, no doubt about it, but what everyone fails to realize is that reddit was a place for pretty much everyone. So if you thought that subreddit was a circlejerk, feel free to join or make a different one. Like open source software getting forked.
All these different social medias want us to be trapped in some sort of bubble through the illusion of choice. The short character limit is also what causes these sites to always be inferior to places like reddit and lemmy whether they like it or not. No one has a chance to fully expand on what they actually think or cite sources instead of being blasted immediately after their first post by getting blocked, cancelled, or moderated to oblivion.
Before I left Reddit, for some time it had started to feel like every comment thread would quickly devolve into a chain of "um actually". So much so that I stopped commenting. I didn't need the hit to the ego and I have no interest in getting into internet arguments. I haven't had that experience here, and ir's encouraged me to participate far more than I did there.
This!
That…became an all too common upvoted reply. At one point Reddit was good, but for years it’s been sliding into enshitification.
You're free to have that choice but the good thing about you making that choice is allowing others to discuss without asking you. Ill admit I didnt comment often either before coming here but the reason for that was I already would read similar comments to what I was thinking. Dogpiling was a problem on reddit but thats with all social media and even life in general.
Dont go on stage if you cant handle the crowd.
people actually challenged eachothers views (mostly) constructively
No, like I said, it's an illusion among Redditors.
Upvoting, downvoting,
Both actively harmful due to the way human brains are wired. Putting pressure onto people actually having a spine, and provoking ape behavior from the rest.
Until one day spez and all the reddit mods decided to let their platform eat shit.
It wasn't one day. Soft censorship in favor of China and Democratic party and what not became a thing much earlier.
There were places that circlejerked, no doubt about it, but what everyone fails to realize is that reddit was a place for pretty much everyone. So if you thought that subreddit was a circlejerk, feel free to join or make a different one. Like open source software getting forked.
They all very circlejerks of some kind. The paradigm works this way.
All these different social medias want us to be trapped in some sort of bubble through the illusion of choice. The short character limit is also what causes these sites to always be inferior to places like reddit and lemmy whether they like it or not. No one has a chance to fully expand on what they actually think or cite sources instead of being blasted immediately after their first post by getting blocked, cancelled, or moderated to oblivion.
Length of text and softness of moderation are good, but do not change the fact that any fool can write a long elaborate smart-looking text, that has nothing to do with honest discussion.
Agree to disagree about the rest of your points. However I disagree 1000% on the engagement argument because when youtube decided dislikes shouldnt exist it was an immediate reaction that it was bullshit.
The pressure is necessary no matter what. If you post some dumb shit dont expect to have just 2 likes. Expect to have 50 dislikes and 2 likes. It helps without even needing to add context, and if you felt especially strong about it then you can reply with that context. This "ape behavior" is called having an opinion without needing to state that you have an opinion all the time. Let the numbers speak for themselves.
You get likes for dumb shit. You get dislikes for angry dumb shit. You get a lot of likes for dangerous vile dumb shit.
What you get a lot of dislikes for is nuance and something that could sober the crowd up if they listened. Possibly dumb shit too, but correctly positioned to irritate the comfort of dangerous vile dumb shit.
This “ape behavior” is called having an opinion without needing to state that you have an opinion all the time.
No, opinions can only be expressed in a friendly conversation. Opinions are a systems of thought with all the accompanying context. You can't possibly express an opinion while fighting someone.
Let the numbers speak for themselves.
I've just described what they say.
EDIT: BTW, about instincts - I've just turned off scores on Lemmy. You should try that, you'll feel that you unexpectedly need to have your own opinion, very often - which means that with scores displayed you would not think.
Downvoted. And when you downvote me I wont take it to heart. But being a contrarian under the guise as a free thinker then burying your head in the sand is the reason we're in the mess we're in.
When you get downvoted on some of your future posts and wonder why not many reply or interact with you dont get pissed off when others like myself use the data to be informed. You make a lot of generalizations and excuses for something that has been a vital part of the internet for decades.
But being a contrarian under the guise as a free thinker then burying your head in the sand is the reason we’re in the mess we’re in.
This sentence doesn't make any sense. In a discussion all sides are equally contrarian.
When you get downvoted on some of your future posts and wonder why not many reply or interact with you dont get pissed off when others like myself use the data to be informed. You make a lot of generalizations and excuses for something that has been a vital part of the internet for decades.
This also doesn't make sense ; any person providing a useful answer would read the comment itself and not trust crowd vote.
I always liked reddit better since people actually discussed real things.
😂
I was on there for 10 years and it has been nothing but a massive circlejerk for the majority of the subs with obvious bots and astrosurfing.
