Bluesky is ALREADY cracking down on accounts for political reason, that's all one needs to know to figure out they need at least to have backup accounts on Mastodon or Friendica:
https://www.turkishminute.com/2025/04/17/bluesky-restrict-access-72-account-turk-amid-government-pressure/
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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Mastodon could be cool.
But lemmy is the killer app for activity pub
Mastodon is already bigger than Lemmy. Just as Twitter was always bigger than Reddit. Long form text is always less popular. Pictures and videos are more popular than short form text, that's why Instagram is bigger than X. We'll see how Pixelfed grows in the coming years.
Bankrupt billionaire businesses
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.
Feeling like the mastodon crowd are preaching on soap boxes here. Not a bad product but will it attract the general public, probably not .
When they are out of sinking ships to scurry to.
People prefer to drown than pick option which is not corporate bullshit. Bluesky won because it's centralized, and people don't have to decide over instance.
Why are you on Lemmy? Or, why do you think the decentralised model works here, but not on mastodon?
Or is it only working because there is no third party VC-backed reddit clone?
Lemmy is barely a thing. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.
People do prefer centralized platforms with shiny front-faces and easy-to-navigate corporate bullshit. The reason why that stuff is so successful is because it works.
People fled to Bluesky because advertisers moved to Bluesky.
There's no ads on bsky tho D:
There are brands moving there, that's how a place starts generating value or the perception of value. I saw the same shit happen with twitter and reddit back in the day, this is just the same cycle repeating.
Maybe, but for now the culture is extremely hostile to *brands*
Lemmy users can subscribe to a community and get tons of posts. I'd have to find 100 people to follow on mastodon to match what a single Lemmy community provides.
As a user of both Mastodon and Lemmy, I think there are inherit differences between the formats that make Lemmy easily a capable replacement for Reddit, but Mastodon not at all a replacement for Twitter.
To get into specifics, Lemmy is more meme and news based, and as long as there are a few thousand users using it and some percentage of those posting content...it largely scratches the same itch.
Twitter was very much an active global conversation forum. It was nicknamed the hell site for a reason because if someone took issue with or was very amused by something you posted and you became "the main character" of Twitter for even an instant (something I experienced only very slightly) it was electrifying and even sort of scary at times.
In addition, the people that were active on there were very active, and it felt at times like you could talk to anyone who had been twitterized...which was a lot of people including prominent politicians, celebrities, and even experts of certain fields.
It was just an entirely different thing altogether. Mastodon is like many of the Twitter alternatives that have popped up from time to time. It's largely kinda the same with regards to functionality (though not having quote tweets is completely ridiculous IMO) but the engagement of it is very low, and the place largely feels very inactive. It feels like you're talking to dead feeds posted in syndication and there's nobody on the other end (and in many cases I don't doubt that is literally the case).
It's not the same as Twitter, and I doubt that Bluesky will even be the same as Twitter. Honestly, maybe all of that's a good thing. But the virality and the engagement and the discovery and everything on Mastodon is way turned down versus Twitter. Twitter was like the crack cocaine of social media...fast, cheap, addictive, and terrible for you. Mastodon is like a cup of tea by comparison.
I agree on the global forum aspect of Twitter being the reason it was exciting for public figures and journalists, but you get waaay more genuine interactions from normal (techy) people on Mastodon. It may feel a bit dead when you start out because there is no algorithm to feed you content, but after a while of using it you get a lot of interesting opinions and feedback on things you post.
I've been on it for a few years now.
It's different from Twitter and that's fine. I have no real drive to join bluesky to see if it's similar because Twitter felt deeply unhealthy anyway. Crack cocaine isn't good for you.
Nobody needs to know about the existence of, for instance, "bean dad".
I think it's "the algorithm", people basically just want to be force-fed "content" – look how successful TikTok is, largely because it has an algorithm that very quickly narrows down user habits and provides endless distraction.
Mastodon and fediverse alternatives by comparison have very simple feeds and ways to surface content, it simply doesn't "hook" people the same way, and that's competition.
On one hand we should probably be doing away with "the algorithm" for reasons not enumerated here for brevity, but on the other hand maybe the fediverse should build something to accommodate this demand, otherwise the non-fedi sites will.
I feel that if the fediverse starts implementing algorithms like the big, corporate social media sites then they should make opt-out available.
That never seems to happen though
Twitter is the first time a global social media giant has seen a major exodus (I guess the second if you count MySpace, but the reasons were pretty different). The sample size is very low.. It's easy to forget how new all of this is.
Even then, how many people actually left their Twitter accounts?
I can't tell how many times I've seen people say "I'm leaving Twitter" only to come back after a month
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.
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!
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.
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.
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"
I agree, I do the same. But the second part of your reply « who cares those aren’t the guys », years and years watching the fediverse trying to kickstart the whole thing proves it wrong . We, fediverse users, do need those people onboard
What "kickstart"? The fediverse isn't a commercial venture. If we can connect with our friends and interests, it's already "working". I find fantastic new people here all the time, doing really niche stuff I'd never find on a platform focused on appealing to everyone.
If "99%" of people aren't on it, that's perfectly acceptable, and just makes it easier for the ones on it to find and talk to their friends. I don't think we need or want the vast torrent of spammers, downvote bots, and "influencer" types who use whatever gives them clicks.
The mass protests against Threads leads me to believe that is actually the opposite of the truth.
Well that’s actually a great thing: many instances will defederate/block thread, some will federate. Freedom of choice
Ok but that contradicts your previous comment
I don’t see why, it’s simple as much as I enjoy the fediverse ideology the current status of this part of internet show how little it is relevant the the vast majority of people. And yet it’s a good thing to allow both fediverse purists and ones that don’t care connecting with the « others » social networks live together.
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.
Can't sell it because it sucks to use lmao
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.
That's exactly my point. Reddit is still shit, and you can't exactly fork the data, because they've locked down the API.
Bluesky could do the exact same thing.
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.
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.
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.