3w ago

What's wrong with bluesky?

Seriously i have zero idea what is going on with bluesky. I never used it. Why are people saying it's centralised? I also heard that a lot of people are joining it.

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It's slightly more than a green(blue?)washed Twatter.
The fact it's getting such a stellar rise over Mastodon is imho a bit sus - people behind it have coin & reach (political), I'm sure monies are being pumped into the bluesky sensationalization, like influences & media articles.
Twatter has/had a lot of monetization potential & now is even more of a (really incredibly direct) political-tool, there are bound to be interest groups that would benefit from cutting it a bit. But all of them want more monies, so they ofc won't help fossy things.
- Having used both, here my view on why BlueSky is outstripping Mastadon:
  It is instantly familiar in operation to anyone who has used Twitter. It looks and feels almost the same to use in a way that Mastadon doesn't (arguable whether that's a good thing or not, but it makes for a comfortable transition).
  There's no messing around with instances to negotiate - you go to bsky.app ~~BlueSky.com~~ and it just works. Hard to overstate how important that is in retaining people who take a look at a new platform.
  There are a lot of people on it, it doesn't feel empty like I have often found Mastadon.
  There are a lot of relatively influential people on it, media people, authors and actors and comedians, who have largely shifted as a single mass (probably due to the three above reasons) - so for non-famous people there's a sense of being in touch with what's happening.
  It's riding a wave of positivity about itself, which Mastadon never had - this touches on your point about media coverage of it, but whether that's really due to money being paid to news orgs or just due to journalists seeing what they are doing as being important for others to know about is open to question.
  I think the various high profile organisational defections to BS have been a big part of it too. I only looked at BS for the first time when I saw the story about the Guardian newspaper quitting Twitter.
  I took a look, created an account and was posting and following people within seconds, it was just really, really smooth. Again, that was not the case (for me) with Mastadon, where it took a while to figure some of it out, and it all just felt a bit fiddly and complicated.
  Much like Lemmy in fact, after leaving Reddit - but again there was enough of a swell of new people shifting as a mass that it felt like it was worth the hassle.
  
  This is the only take based in reality. Nobody (except us) cares about openness, federation or business models. What matters are ease of use and adoption.
  Of course that doesn't mean that the other takes are missing the mark in terms of history possibly repeating itself in the future. But if it does, that just means that (as is to be expected) the people don't make momentary decisions with a bigger (collective) picture in mind. Design needs to address individual needs first and foremost especially when it comes to social media.
  Nobody joins a platform to beat corporate ownership of people's digital lives. BlueSky manufactured adoption by starting out as an invite-only cool kids club. Having to pick a fediverse instance is an entry barrier. There will always be a lot less money to throw around when you're trying to create something under the umbrella of freedom and openness. I don't see how these movements could ever win, even if they provide an arguably better product.
  
  It is instantly familiar in operation to anyone who has used Twitter. It looks and feels almost the same to use in a way that Mastadon doesn't (arguable whether that's a good thing or not, but it makes for a comfortable transition).
  Yup, pretty much. I tried Mastodon and found it very unintuitive, but BlueSky was immediately understandable as a former Twitter user. I don't really use either that much, but I've spent way more time with BlueSky.
  Honestly, it's the same with Lemmy. I tried a lot of Reddit alternatives, both federated and centralized, and I landed on Lemmy because A) It has the only decently-sized user base and B) my preferred Reddit app, Sync, moved to Lemmy. Lemmy is similar enough to Reddit on it's own that transitioning over wouldn't have been difficult, but having Sync just made it that much easier.
  
  There are a lot of people on it, it doesn't feel empty like I have often found Mastadon.
  Mastodon isn't empty. People just have to follow folks to actually get any content. Now, Bluesky definitely does the onboarding better in that regard, but this almost certainly comes down to people not knowing that they have to follow accounts to get content.
  
  Well possibly - I do follow people Mastadon though, and it still feels quiet to me. I probably need to spend more time finding people to follow.
  
  In order to get a similar experience to Twitter, you need to follow a lot more people on Mastodon than you did on Twitter, because you never get that algorithmic backfill (and, in fairness, because there are fewer people using it).
  
  It's funny. People tell me they like that Bluesky has "no algorithm."
  
  Yes, so the ease of the whole onboarding process & communities/groups that migrated there.
  No arguments on the first one (tho stupid on both sides).
  What my brainhole is telling me is that the second argument feels a tad too big seeing how Mastodon basically didn't grew in the same timeframe. What they call "content" and "community" creation feels driven, the "wave" as you put it.
  (But again, this is just imho & 'a feeling', I have no sauce, not even that much personal experience)
  
  Its funny bluesky.com is not the bluesky website that most people are thinking of.
  
  Hah, neither it is, my bad! I just assumed and didn't bother to check. Will fix that.

148 comments