this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Bluesky is literally just old Twitter but better. Why do people insist on hurting themselves with Threads?

Edit: for those more technically inclined, it looks like there are now instructions on how to host your own Bluesky instance. It sounds like you may need a developer account before you can federate with the official instance though.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah the only problem with bluesky is that it still has such strict limits on who can join, and even who can see the content. Can't exactly make it your online home for announcements and such if most people can't see them there even if they wanted to.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'll never understand why people are so excited for something that is proprietary and invite-only...

Oh yeah, they're idiots. I suspect bluesky is paying for a lot of viral marketing.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bluesky might be better Twitter, but if people doesn't hear about it, or does not want to try it out, they'll stay on Twitter. Or if they can't stand Musk they go to Threads. Simply because those platforms are the biggest there.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bluesky is spreading like wildfire in academia at least.

And much like wildfire, it's going to be a fucking disaster. I don't understand why people who are paid to be critical thinkers would jump to another platform owned by a centralised actor. It'll be the same shit all over again.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Because centralization is safe and the majority of users really don’t care about using services owned by major corps.

The fediverse is extremely uninviting if you’re a non-technical user. Not impossible, but it’s not a great experience. Centralized social media removes a lot of choices users need to make, which counterintuitively is what tends to make a better UX for the average user. It comes at the expense of the power user, but the power users aren’t the target audience most of the time.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah, it's an unfortunate reality that the ecosystem just isn't very mature yet. Like technically it's got all the power to run a social media site, but all the onboarding processes and little conveniences that would make it a pleasant move aren't there.

One thing activitypub is missing right now is a built-in way to discover the network, discover instances and understand the shape of the network in terms of federation status. Right now there are outside tools you can discover and peer in from the outside, but they're clunky, break intermittently, and they're not easy to find.

Activitypub only does one half of its job right now: making posts happen. Because it is built on federation it needs to also intrinsically allow users to discover and learn about that process of federation. That's not something any other social media platform has ever had to do, so it's understandable that it was missed, but I think it's key to both differentiating itself from those other networks and becoming more legible.

With centralisation, the posts, networks, onboarding, discovery, all of it is handled by one actor, so they can do all of that however they want.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I honestly think a lot is solved with the new onboarding experience in Mastodon, even though it's controversial in the fediverse.

If the twitter exodus to Mastodon happened today I suspect the main problem, except the servers having to deal with millions of people trying to sign up all at once, would be the lack of quote posts. Which is at least on the roadmap.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe BECAUSE I HAVEN'T RECEIVED THE DAMN CODE!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Although with their proprietary solution, there's a significant chance that Bluesky is going to be Twitter 2.0 if it ever gains traction. I'm rooting for fediverse to take off because my social media activity has shrunk to a couple of group chats with close friends and family plus occasional comments on Mastodon and Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Idk bro, sounds kind of emotionally healthy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Although with their proprietary solution, there’s a significant chance that Bluesky is going to be Twitter 2.0 if it ever gains traction.

Bluesky.social is open source (MIT) and supports federation, though I don't know to what degree it compares to federation as implemented across what we normally think of as the fediverse. I know it's a different protocol, but not more than that.

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/5-5-2023-federation-architecture

https://github.com/bluesky-social

I'd love the fediverse as we know it to become dominant, but I think it's going to be a slow burn if it happens at all.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You know what would be hilarious? Eventually blue sky buys the leftovers of twitter and renames itself twitter. Although by that time it may not be a prudent move. So maybe not.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even funnier would be to buy x.com in the liquidation sale.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can see it now

"The site formerly known as 'X formerly known as Twitter'"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been under the impression that part of the reason for bluesky's invite system is to help keep out bad actors. It makes it easier to ban someone and keep them from coming back. Buying Twitter would just open the floodgates.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Just buy twitter the brand but keep none of the user lists or tech stack, just the name. Honestly though I've been sick of twitter for years at this point and I would rather it be reduced to a footnote in history, an emblem of the bad times when a handful of billionaire assholes controlled all of our information ecosystems.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because the majority of people don’t even know what bluesky is, and those who do can’t get an invite

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're a lot more common than you think; you get an invite to give out every 10 days. It's just that you gotta ask around for them. If you're looking for an invite, try asking a furry. I think most of the furry community who wants to be on Bluesky is already there at this point, so there are probably a number of furries who have tons of unused invites.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This explains why I was seeing so many Furries at first. Dialed in the Feeds and don't see them anymore but I was confused at first

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yup. The furry community is very tight-knit. If you pick any two humans at random, there will be six degrees of separation between them on average. I'd be willing to bet there's a maximum of six degrees of separation between furries, with the average probably being 2~3 degrees. If you pick people with related interests, the maximum probably drops to 3~4 degrees, with the average being around 1~2. The result is that Bluesky spread like wildfire through the community.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I think the invite system slows people joining vs Threads easy sign up. I agree that it is straight up old Twitter and enjoying myself on it. I just started getting invites , they go fast but definitely give them out. Seems like every time I see a post about it I don't have a code to give out. Definitely need to just keep one on deck for the Lemmy comment section.