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Bluesky trying to go the way of Clubhouse with their invite-only clownshow

sahaj 3y ago
The Bluesky infra would not be able to handle scale without invite-only clownshow. Meta can open the floodgates without breaking a sweat.
- morkalork 3y ago
  Might be worth it to push through anyways. Twitter had its fail whales back in the day, I think a couple of temporary outages caused by demand might even be a good thing and add to the hype. Absence makes the heart grow fonder doesn't it? Seems silly to trade insane growth for perfectionism instead.
- mrcwinn 3y ago
  And as many of us have observed, the key isn't just the app or UI, it's that there are people there. With Threads, people are indeed there. Like it or not I think this means Bluesky is dead-on-didn't-arrive. Is it any surprise Facebook got this right? Understanding "it's cool because there are people there" is part of their origin story, after all.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  isn't Bluesky supposed to run on a federated protocol? They could just open source their reference implementation and let people run their own instances. Not even the protocol itself seems to be public.
  - wmf 3y ago
    Nothing about Bluesky is secret; it's just unfinished.
  - Hamuko 3y ago
    >Not even the protocol itself seems to be public. Protocol: https://atproto.com/ https://atproto.com/ All Bluesky posts in real time: https://firesky.tv/ https://firesky.tv/
- caskstrength 3y ago
  > The Bluesky infra would not be able to handle scale without invite-only clownshow. Meta can open the floodgates without breaking a sweat. Honest question: are they emulating "classical Twitter" to the extent of going with self-hosted inefficient Rails implementation? Or what is their problem with scaling exactly in 2023 beyond ordering more instances in some AWS gui?
- rchaud 3y ago
  That assumes that if open registration was enabled, people would be banging down the doors to create an account. Very unlikely unless Twitter straight up shuts down. The threads app can pull in millions in a day because they can login with Instagram SSO, zero friction.
dkh 3y ago
Everyone on bluesky loves the invite system because it has ensured growth doesn’t overwhelm still-developing features like how moderation works, it has encouraged people to generally invite non-assholes since their own reputation is at stake, etc.
- rewtraw 3y ago
  making it a content platform with little content. and of that sparse content, most of it is meta-commentary on bluesky itself. poasters post where the consumers are, and vice versa. Threads is on its way to bootstrapping this network effect in a way bluesky never even began to scratch due to the invite system and niche appeal
  - dkh 3y ago
    It's not like it's going to remain this way permanently, a lot is still under development. It's not just about infra scale, they are still hammering out things like how moderation will work, and that is the sort of thing best to iron out before the floodgates are opened.
    - siva7 3y ago
      Doesn't matter how good your social network product is if you don't catch the network effect early on. They are loosing a brutal battle against a billion dollar corp.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    Please, did network effects help Google+ ?
    - varjag 3y ago
      Google+ (and other GOOG social media upstarts) was… speical in its user conscription model and failed because of it. A place where they throw you to after handcuffing you on YouTube can't be too desirable.
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_Algernon_ 3y ago
Worked well for Google+ as well lol

The Bluesky infra would not be able to handle scale without invite-only clownshow. Meta can open the floodgates without breaking a sweat.

morkalork 3y ago
Might be worth it to push through anyways. Twitter had its fail whales back in the day, I think a couple of temporary outages caused by demand might even be a good thing and add to the hype. Absence makes the heart grow fonder doesn't it? Seems silly to trade insane growth for perfectionism instead.
mrcwinn 3y ago
And as many of us have observed, the key isn't just the app or UI, it's that there are people there. With Threads, people are indeed there. Like it or not I think this means Bluesky is dead-on-didn't-arrive. Is it any surprise Facebook got this right? Understanding "it's cool because there are people there" is part of their origin story, after all.
Barrin92 3y ago
isn't Bluesky supposed to run on a federated protocol? They could just open source their reference implementation and let people run their own instances. Not even the protocol itself seems to be public.
- wmf 3y ago
  Nothing about Bluesky is secret; it's just unfinished.
- Hamuko 3y ago
  >Not even the protocol itself seems to be public. Protocol: https://atproto.com/ https://atproto.com/ All Bluesky posts in real time: https://firesky.tv/ https://firesky.tv/
caskstrength 3y ago
> The Bluesky infra would not be able to handle scale without invite-only clownshow. Meta can open the floodgates without breaking a sweat. Honest question: are they emulating "classical Twitter" to the extent of going with self-hosted inefficient Rails implementation? Or what is their problem with scaling exactly in 2023 beyond ordering more instances in some AWS gui?
rchaud 3y ago
That assumes that if open registration was enabled, people would be banging down the doors to create an account. Very unlikely unless Twitter straight up shuts down. The threads app can pull in millions in a day because they can login with Instagram SSO, zero friction.

dkh 3y ago

Everyone on bluesky loves the invite system because it has ensured growth doesn’t overwhelm still-developing features like how moderation works, it has encouraged people to generally invite non-assholes since their own reputation is at stake, etc.

rewtraw 3y ago
making it a content platform with little content. and of that sparse content, most of it is meta-commentary on bluesky itself. poasters post where the consumers are, and vice versa. Threads is on its way to bootstrapping this network effect in a way bluesky never even began to scratch due to the invite system and niche appeal
- dkh 3y ago
  It's not like it's going to remain this way permanently, a lot is still under development. It's not just about infra scale, they are still hammering out things like how moderation will work, and that is the sort of thing best to iron out before the floodgates are opened.
  - siva7 3y ago
    Doesn't matter how good your social network product is if you don't catch the network effect early on. They are loosing a brutal battle against a billion dollar corp.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  Please, did network effects help Google+ ?
  - varjag 3y ago
    Google+ (and other GOOG social media upstarts) was… speical in its user conscription model and failed because of it. A place where they throw you to after handcuffing you on YouTube can't be too desirable.

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_Algernon_ 3y ago

Worked well for Google+ as well lol