The Great Migration to Bluesky Gives Me Hope for the Future of the Internet

I like Jason but he completely missed the boat on this one.
The active migration away from social media networks that are owned, controlled by, and distorted by the richest men and most powerful companies in the world to a decentralized platform that is not owned and controlled by billionaires is one of the more hopeful things to happen in what has largely been a bleak year for the human internet as AI slop infects everything and billionaires put their thumbs on the scale of what we see on social media.
He says this and yet jumps to Bluesky, a platform created by Jack Dorsey and now owned and managed by a crypto bro? You don't need powers of prophecy to see where Bluesky is headed.
- Honestly I don't know what's up with the mass delusion about Bluesky being oligarch-free. It's understandable that most don't know or haven't looked into it, but then some folks that should know better are displaying the same ignorance.
  
  People going over don't care who owns it, they just want to use a platform that regularly censors thoughts they disagree with. That's it.
- People aren't going to be convinced of social/communism overnight.
  I celebrate the move to BlueSky as positive in that they are no longer propping up an apartheid tech bro who's now running a meme branch of US Government, and also because many of them are doing the thing they were scared to do before: leave. They now know how that feels and what it will be like rebuilding friend groups and such.
  It's not the anti-corpo step many are deluding themselves to believe it is, but getting out of the muck and learning how to take the step to change something are both things I see as positives that can be guided to better things in the future.
  
  Your rant is very much appreciated.
  
  Most people came to Lemmy becaise they felt personally agreived by the Reddit API issue. They don't give a shit about what's good for the Internet, or society.
  They're here out of protest, and would happily give their all to the next Billionaire that makes them feel smarter than the average bear.
  
  Small steps
- He says this and yet jumps to Bluesky, a platform created by Jack Dorsey and now owned and managed by a crypto bro?
- Whether it soon becomes possible to self host an AppView, the one remaining centralized component will tell us a lot about where it's headed.
  
  There are already smaller appviews that use the existing hosting/authentication infra, but bypassing the bsky appview aggregation. Nothing with any real scale but for example there is a barebones reddit/hackernews equivalent https://frontpage.fyi/
- At least maybe some more regular people will learn about decentralization (and alternative ways there) from this mass adoption?

Lemmy does not understand that people are leaving X cuz of Nazis, not cuz it’s a centralized corpo platform.
- Pretty sure a significant portion of nazis are also moving to bluesky
  
  But on Bluesky you don't get them shoved in your face and there is culture of just blocking Nazis and moving on.
- Elon turned it into his own personal Nazi blog where people can't block him.
- To a platform that has been on the record about not kicking ouy Nazis, though.
- There were Nazis on X for years before this. They're leaving because Trump won.

The CEO of Bluesky just posted they hit 17M users today after hitting 16M in the last 24 hours.
The juice is juicin'.
- Threads, Blue Sky and Mastodon are at 292.8m mau vs Twitter’s 304m
  
  Sure, but what percentage of users are bots on twitter at this point?
- We are witnessing the rise of a new platform (in terms of relevance) in real time, this will probably be one of the key points in our digital decade, and it's happening right now! Have you thought about it?

People are leaving Muskrats fascist supporting platform. So what if they aren't going to Mastedon, they're leaving Twitter. Isn't that enough for us?
I don't need Mastedon to win. I just want Twitter to lose. Once Twitter has been (hopefully) de-platformed we can talk about Mastedon and the Fediverse and the idea of a non-corpo platform.
But it terms of main stream casual appeal, Mastedon still doesn't have it yet, and that's okay.
Mastedon needs to get more casual with the introduction to the Fediverse because for everyday non-tech people, it can be a little confusing.
People see Bluesky as the Twitter replacement because of its simplicity.
- They're leaving Musk, but they're not leaving his financial backers, and they're entering into the same kind of "possibly sold to a fascist despot at a moment's notice" situation they just left.
  It's short sighted, perfirmative, and doesn't actually make the Internet better at all. It just tells us that people prefer a closed Internet owned by billionaires.
  
  Yeah, what's stopping the richest guy in the world just buying blue-sky as well?
  
  Maybe these people need to feel the cycle first hand a few more times and that's okay. ActivityPub will be even stronger when it comes around again.
- Once Twitter has been (hopefully) de-platformed we can talk about Mastedon and the Fediverse and the idea of a non-corpo platform.
  BlueSky is as prone to enshittification as Twitter. If you're waiting for BlueSky to take off, you're just setting yourself up for the next rug pull.
  I mean, go to BS and enjoy it while it lasts. But don't think this is the future.
- Well said. Maybe there's more to do in the hardware, software and general computing training such that the layman could safely deploy their own Website like we used to be able to do. Then everyone could have their own servers at home like some of us do. True decentralized communication.
  Lemmy would be great for dare I say it...church congregations for example. Schools, mechanic forums, unofficial student associations like alpha Kapa whatever. ETC. it's a momentous opportunity.
- Yes, it's better to move forward a little than to go backwards. When you move forward you can keep moving forward more later. If you move backwards you have to fight for what you lost before you can get more back.

Bluesky is not great, but it's at least (for now) a better platform than X and the AT protocol is actually very well written. (For instance having a moderation service separated from the service that provides the posts I think is a hands-down better way to handle it than most ActivityPub servers having their admins handle all incoming and outgoing moderation)
Bluesky federation is just now getting started so it'll be interesting to see if it goes anywhere/where it goes.

Anything which drives nails into the xitter coffin is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. Bluesky may not tick many people's boxes here on lemmy, but this migration shows that lots of people wanted to leave xitter but didn't see an option. Threads clearly didn't attract them, likely due to the owner. I hope it nothing else, Bluesky is a less toxic place and xitter and musk become less relevant. In the long run Bluesky may end up being another head of the hydra , but for now, it's not, and it may get people used to the idea of federation.

That decentralized and self-hostable platforms like Lemmy are fringe does not give me hope for the future of social networks on the Internet.
- They don't have to have everyone on them to be good. In some ways it's preferable not to. Reddit was far better before the Digg migration, and we might already be living in the golden years of Lemmy and not even realize it.
  
  I don’t know, Reddit also has more niche communities that just don’t have enough people in platforms like Lemmy.

If people moving from one corpo owned platform to another corpo owned platform gives you hope for the future of the internet: You haven't been paying attention to the history of the internet at all.
Once they have critical mass, the enshittification for profit will begin a new.
- But it means people are still capable of caring.
- At least it theoretically has account portability...but yes, I fear people are setting themselves up to be enshittified again, as Cory Doctorow has brought up

Whhhhhhy?
This is the same thing. This is the exact same type of platform that will eventually go the same way. This is shooting yourself in the foot once, then aiming the shotgun at the other foot and pulling the trigger thinking that the bullet was a fluke the first time.
- To be fair Musk buying twitter and turning it into a Nazi propaganda site was kind of flukey.
  
  Twitter was already really bad, Musk just brought back the Nazis and fired all the people that were the guardrails.
  
  Bluesky just got major investment from a crypto bro...
  It's not flukey...
  
  Was it though?
  A billionaire buys or funds a privately owned platform and does with it as he pleases, despite the obviously humanitarian route being something different. Have we really never seen that before?
- Because most people switching don’t know (or care) about the fediverse and decentralization. They are regular internet users who just want to get away from the cesspool that is twitter, so they go where other people are going.

Idk why people think the average user is going to go to Mastodon. I’m glad anything else other than Twitter or Threads is popping off.
Mastodon could have worked sooner if it was more approachable.

Shame that it's another Capital-owned platform taking the spotlight. I'm not surprised unfortunately. We'll be in the same place we are now in 10 years.
I'm preaching to the choir, but mastodon is the better platform if you want more authentic community and conversation.
- Chances are that any new large commercial platform will enshittify, sooner or later prompting another exodus, and each exodus will at least have some people choosing a community platform.

I'm really enjoying Bluesky strangely enough, not normally my thing.

How does another social media ruled by a billionaire gives hope?
- Because it shows that a sizable amount of people are at least anti-nazi enough to move platform.
  Yes, it would be nicer if they moved to mastodon, but nobody even knows what that is, nobody is there (classic chicken and egg problem), and people get confused by the whole "choose an instance/server" thing.
  Is it not ok to have a small celebration of people moving to a better, more positive platform, even if it is far from perfect?

Anybody recommend a good mastodon instance?
- my personal solo instance is great but the admin is an asshole.
- Pick any instance that suits your interests: https://joinmastodon.org/en/servers There is also this picker.
  
  This is really cool, it helped me find an instance that specializes in shitposting, much appreciated!
- I'm on Fedia.io
  Which is both Fediverse and Mastodon.
  
  Which is both Fediverse and Mastodon.
  Well… yeah.

It's venture capital. Eventually it will stop being open source and will enshitify just like every other platform. So nothing is changing long term in my opinion.

I hope some of them come to the Fediverse. It's nice that only the curious ones will come.
- I think the smartest ones will. Really I don't mind an intelligent community like this one.

I think this time it actually has some teeth to it, even big famous artists like Lack are on blue sky now, my feed is looking pretty good daily now where before I had to wait a few days before checking it out.
- A lot of the big accounts I follow have been reporting a huge loss in followers on Twitter and an even larger influx of followers on Bluesky.

If it was owned by the community that moderated it, then yes. But no it's owned by another rich asshole.

- Bluesky actually has content though. Unless all you want is linux and news.
- Its open source isn't it? It still has the same problems but on a privacy level, having it be open source is much better.
  
  reddit was open source as well.
  was

The main thing I would like to know is why so many people nowadays want a microblog platform, whether it is X or Bluesky or Mastodon, and why community-based platforms like Lemmy are getting relatively little attention in comparison.
Is it just that these people weren't seriously online before the rise of microblogs? They didn't start out with phpBB-style forums, so don't miss their existence and think that individuals having followers is the normal state of the Internet? I'm genuinely not super sure what's going on.
- People have different tastes, which can vary.
  Microblogging is something more casual, and has more focus on the people sharing content. Community foruns are revolved around the content shared, so you don't really get to know people, so it has a difference on what they actually want.
  
  I found that on old forums I did get to know the people regularly posting on them quite well over time (and they got to know me). On reddit and lemmy not so much, or do you have any idea about anything I've posted before (because I don't know anything about you).
- Community-based platforms aren't receiving as much attention because while Reddit is getting worse and worse, it has not reached the level of enshittification Twitter is at. Most people are still going to keep using it. Twitter on the other hand is reaching the point where huge amount of people are leaving, making alternative microblog platforms very relevant.

Someone has to do a mastodon instance called Bluesky
- Blueski
- Tradermark/copyright. Someone did that, but with the Koo app, since it expired.

Why does everyone suddenly forget BSky was created by Jack Dorsey?
It's going to be another Twitter. Bring everyone in, AI scrape all the data, then sell when the climate moves too far in one direction.
Or is this like the Great Reddit Exodus, that lasted maybe a month?

is also decentralized and is federated, meaning it is moving toward a future where users “own” their audiences and can port them elsewhere (you can, and many do, argue about the details here, and about the differences between ActivityPub, which Mastodon uses, and the AT Protocol, which Bluesky uses).
Best coverage yet for that alone

The wrong migration to IMHO…

OP has posted (and re-posted) about Bluesky about 40 times in the last 48 hours. I’m down voting every single one. Quit shilling for billionaires.
- Are they a bot??

So ppl switching from one VC-funded centralised corpo platform to another VC-funded (slitghly less) centralised corpo platform is a good thing?
big X
just because it's OSS doesn't make it good. The corp still hold all the power and might sell out, but at least they got free volunteers to program for them so the C-level could get more money!
(now don't tell me that Bluesky is "federated". They still hold all the power over site rules and moderation. The only little concession you get is that you are allowed to host your own data)

Bluesky is VC-funded. Enshittification incoming.

Wish they would go to Mastodon, even Threads which is on the fediverse.

I just moved our D&D account over there.

I don't know. Lots of folks pointing out That Part Of Twitter (TPOT) also migrating over.
- luckily bluesky has strong moderation tools and community managed block listn, so you can totally limit the voices of those folk
- On Bluesky anyone who really hates TPOT can make a block list that anyone can subscribe to and you never have to think of it again. You can also easily flag accounts to include on the list.
  If TPOT moved en masse to Mastodon, across many different instances, how would someone achieve the same thing? My understanding is they don’t have any similar feature. As long as “just block them all individually or hope they all move to one shitty instance you can block” is the solution, it’s going to fail to attract people.
  
  Instances that welcome that part of Twitter are mostly defederated.
- Meaning like the rationalist / effective altruism guys? Would have thought they'd be prone to sticking with Musk
  
  The postrat folk. The deep value Silicon Valley folk. Core Techbro kind of people.
  Would have thought they'd be prone to sticking with Musk
  Ditto, but at the same time. Being with daddy Musk might be too traditional at this point. No idea the reasons, but you can to see a lot of this popping up in that circle on Twitter.
  TPOT → Bluesky is actually an interesting example of what looks like a successful transplantation... quasi-existential concerns about Elon Twitter, vibes have been off leading to big cascades of migration tend to happen after inciting incidents (eg twitter banning substack links being a canary in the coal mine)
  You know the "I sound super thoughtful" kind of stuff. Lots of praise from that Group on XTwitter/Bluesky.

the great migration to another investor-backed patiently waiting disaster. enjoy it while it's good. if only they used activitypub. Mastodon is just too confusing for the average person, it will never take off. bluesky streamlines everything into being simple and understandable to the average user. I laugh when I see people circle jerking about being better than twitter when in reality it was started by the same people and all it takes is someone with too much money and it'll be another fall-off story.
edit: I say this as someone who uses it, beats using shitter in it's festering decaying state.
- Mastodon is just too confusing for the average person
  You're mistaking motivation for ability. If you understand email, you can understand Mastodon.
  
  You think the average person understands email?

Right up until you sit through his 6min speech on 1A. It’s like the goal is to turn all social media platforms into Twitter.

What a fucking lib take... See you on Mastodon after Dorsey fuck y'all over again
- https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/05/jack-dorsey-says-hes-no-longer-on-the-bluesky-board/
  
  Even if dorsey is too busy sniffing his own farts bluesky is built on vc money just like twitter was. This is the same song and every one is just dancing to the same old hollow tune.

Right up until you sit through his 6min speech on 1A. It’s like the goal is to turn all social media platforms into Twitter.

Why?
The internet at large is still a cesspool.
The only difference is who is in control of it.
- Community is and always has been important. The key is and airways has been your ability to effectively curate your community. It is a cesspool if and only if you lack that ability

Most smart people left Twitter years ago. Dont make the same mistakes again and again. We can build a better web on the fedi. Heavily EDITED lol.
- If you were still on Twitter, please dont join Mastodon, we dont want you.
  ~~STFU or~~ say you are speaking for yourself. Fedi is for everyone that's the whole point of the exercise.
  
  Yeah that was a bit extreme lol, I deleted it. I am just tired of seeing so many posts that promotes another capitalist solution that will inevitably lead to the same result. Meanwhile the open alternatives are fully working but snubbed by far too many people. We have the power to build a better, more fair web, it just needs more people to get involved.
  
  They can't handle when people don't think like them, simple as that. They want their own echo chamber, and BlueSky is the perfect one at this moment.

Bluesky is run by the founder of twitter, which took far too long to ban Trump the first time round. I don't know why so many people are giving him another chance to do the same shit again.
EDIT: I stand corrected. Dorsey left.
- Jack Dorsey no longer has anything to do with Bluesky. https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/05/jack-dorsey-says-hes-no-longer-on-the-bluesky-board/
  
  Oh. Good.

do we really want people that waited until now to even think about an alternative to fascists media?

Now left-wing has their own echo chamber, hurray
- Now normal people have a microblogging platform where they aren't constantly having fascist propaganda shoved down their throats.
  
  fascist propaganda shoved down their throats
  I'v seen more left propaganda on Reddit and Twitter, and people who can't handle other perspectives calling you fascist just because how you marked a ballot.
  People are not leaving twitter because of "fascism", they are leaving twitter because they have zero tolerance to other perspectives, they think their vote is the right one, and they are the smarter ones. An echo chamber by definition.
  Everything I see on Reddit is people getting downvoted and banned just for saying: "My husband is a republican, but a ballot doesn't define you as a person and he loves and respects me as much as I do"