The Social Network That Can't Sell Out: Understanding Mastodon vs. Bluesky
The Social Network That Can't Sell Out: Understanding Mastodon vs. Bluesky - phillipjreese.com
SYAC: The key sentence: "Bluesky, despite its innovative technology and good intentions, is built on the same venture-capital-backed foundation that has led so many promising platforms to eventually prioritize shareholders over users. " Mastodent wins!
I look forward to the documentary.
“Mastodon: Victory Through Technical Superiority”, available soon on Laserdisc and Betamax
I don't think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it's superior technology.
What mastodon isn't is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don't feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that's fine. I want to talk to people who think I'm human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
I don't think anyone is claiming technical superiority. And certainly not financial superiority.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
This isn't going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn't just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
Maybe.
preaching to the choir
Still useful to post though, it's a decent simple over view that can be shared elsewhere
All true. And yet sadly until mastodon or better say another fediverse instance do have algorithms and a brain dead stupid onboarding and hyper cool phone apps, that will not do for 99% of the people.
I was told something like this about an article I was pointing out wasn't on page 1 of google, but was on virtually all other engines. "Unless it's page 1 of google nobody cares"
And all I can say is "who cares? those aren't the people it's for"
There will always be two types of users: people looking to connect and people looking to be entertained. Fedi is better at the former and commercial better at the latter.
It’s still worth it to red-pill people of the harms these algorithms cause and accept smaller network sizes that exclude people who refuse to “quit smoking” so to speak.
I don't use these so maybe I'm missing something, but why would you have to choose? Bluesky is centralized but it seems like its design is committed enough to open technology that it would take them a long time to walk it back, and in the meantime there shouldn't be barriers to using unified clients that put content from both in the same interface, and possibly override any opinionated content algorithm from the company (not sure if that's feasible or not).
Bluesky is centralized but it seems like its design is committed enough to open technology that it would take them a long time to walk it back
Let's not forget that Reddit's code is open source. Just because their technology is open doesn't mean that the data, usage, and network are protected.
Open source code doesn't mean open API though. Bluesky seems to have made a whole thing out of their technical architecture, and I get the arguments that it's centralized in practice, but wouldn't it mean basically scrapping the whole thing to lock down third party clients? Even if that didn't mean anything I think multiclients could be a good idea anyway, if people were using those and there was a Reddit situation, some portion of users would want to stay with the same clients rather than using whatever proprietary app they try to push.
I have a good friend that I have ALMOST convinced to join Mastodon. He’s considering a username still, but I keep hounding him to make his account. Despite being politically / socially left, he’s generally not got the strong feelings I have toward the pros of a decentralized social media platform. I seemingly convinced him that simply it’s different / interesting you’ll see stuff you won’t generally see on mainstream social media, and you control what you see AND it’s not ever going to have ads or be corporate-run. But I still think he’s not necessarily sold on the idea. This is my very close friend. As for people I am more casually acquainted with? I don’t think I’ll ever get anyone else to join. As someone else in the comments said, essentially, “who cares? This isn’t for those people”, to which I largely agree. I think people need to come to the fediverse on their own accord or will forever feel like it’s just some aggro tech bro space. My aforementioned friend who I describe above for what it’s worth was adamant that Mastodon is “for right wingers”. I had to politely insist while I’m sure there are far right instances, these are not what I’ve experienced AND the official Mastodon site promotes instances that are antiracist and anti-bigotry.
Anyway, my biggest wish for the fediverse is that it grows as far as more artists, bands, news sources, etc. join. I still really like it as is, but it’ll only enhance things to have more variety of sources and voices onboard.
From my experience, just use it and make it seem appealing. Maybe send him mastadon stuff from time to time and he'll warm up to the idea. I mean I don't get what's too hard about it, it's kinda like email.
I just don't like the model of it. Quick, jabby posts without much banter, and most of the news here makes it there anywyay.
