mcc
I like having Bluesky because it is a non-Twitter, non-Facebook space where I can hear from all my friends who are unable or unwilling to use Mastodon (a site with real barriers to entry). I haven't talked to a lot of those folks much since 2022 and I missed them.
I have intricate arguments why Bluesky is the wrong technical model for a distributed social network. But if a person has already decided *for nontechnical reasons* that they aren't using Mastodon, those arguments mean nothing to them
Evan Prodromou
@mcc do you use the bridge?
mcc
@evan I do not think the bridge matches my model of how I use either website
Evan Prodromou
@mcc like, following people you know?
mcc
@evan Oh. No, I just installed both apps.
Evan Prodromou
@mcc OK. I don't think I understand what you mean by "model" then.
mcc
@evan The verbs are not the same and the communities are not the same. When I am publishing, I post subtly different streams based on the differing interests of my friends on the two sites, and I word things differently based on perceived attention spans and Mastodon's improved support for longform content (longer posts, bluesky UI fails on threads longer than 3 posts). On bluesky I post less stuff and the stuff I do post is simplified.
Evan Prodromou
@mcc ah, thanks!
josuetorres
@mcc what would you consider as a barrier for mastodon?
Nazo
@mcc The problem, IMO, lies in the differences of the nature of the enshittification.
Mastodon has issues with interfaces, details of exactly how federation does, etc etc. Things that at least theoretically can be fixed someday. Many may not be. Absolutely! But at least there's possibility.
In comparison, Bluesky is probably already doing bad things like gathering and selling user data and is going to eventually start participating in willful user manipulation just as its predecessors have done. It's inherent into its very design and nature that it must eventually do this. That's a different sort of problem and it's not going to be fixed because it is built in by design. The only questions are how long until it goes too far and how dangerous will it get. (Not looking good.)
mcc
There is a lot of Bluesky negativity on Mastodon and like, I am actually pretty negative on Bluesky?, but sometimes the negativity expands into attacking *Bluesky users* for making a Bad and Wrong decision, and not only is this mean¹, I feel like almost all of *those* critiques are deeply failing at empathetic imagination. You have to consider the Bluesky user's choice from *their perspective*.
¹ Sometimes being mean to a person is an ineffective way of convincing them to change their mind.
mcc
Note: I don't know if I specifically agree with this argument but I think it is very, very interesting
mcc
A number of people replied to my first post to say "but my objections to Bluesky are governance-related, not technical!". IE, the "what if Bluesky turns evil" argument.
But say someone doesn't like Mastodon. They don't like the UX. Or they don't like the ~vibe~. If you tell them, someday Bluesky will enshittify! Well. That will not be a convincing argument if, from their perspective, Mastodon is *already* shit. Those folks want a site they enjoy *now*. "Will I enjoy it later?" is secondary.
Rich Felker
@cobweb @nazokiyoubinbou @mcc BDFL absolutely can be fixed. Lots of instances already run forks or alternative compatible software. If a critical mass decide Gargron is irrelevant then he's irrelevant. This is never an inherent, unfixable problem when you have FOSS.
Cobweb, Currently Clean on OPSEC; Grungler; Ⓐ ⁂ Ⓐ ⁂
@nazokiyoubinbou @mcc I don’t think all of mastodons problems are technical, and probably at least some of them *can’t* be fixed. Like the BDFL issue.
Christiaan Moleman
@skillissues @mcc Also as far as joining: having to choose a server and how to choose one is completely foreign concept to people used to birdsite etc and very poorly explained, the range of suggested servers is incomplete, no clear way to tell which is right for you, and so most people just throw their hands up and go for the already overloaded default social server or any random server and have a bad experience.
Christiaan Moleman
@skillissues @mcc If you try to interact with someone from a different server you have to do stupid stuff like copy paste their name into search instead of just clicking follow or like or whatever. If you try to change servers you have to manually copy your follows (since only followers are auto-transferred). Mastodon has a long way to go on user experience and basic convenience.
deletethisuser
@mcc I just joined both. Mastodon was super easy to join, what barriers?
Already the content here is much better. I already get a sense of AI bots on Bluesky, or is it just me?
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