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The options this creates are super accessible to non-technical people. You can go on the app store right now and take your pick of bsky clients, and you can bro
by brundolf 3y ago
The options this creates are super accessible to non-technical people. You can go on the app store right now and take your pick of bsky clients, and you can browse/search different algos from within the app and keep a list of your favorites and swap between them, it's all very user-friendly
Most of the biggest complaints people have about twitter are client-side problems. So just having an ecosystem of clients (and the competitive pressure that puts on the official client) makes the experience way better
- jjfoooo4 3y agoChoice is only good if the options are differentiated and easy to understand. A bunch of algo and client options sound good for someone who is already a committed user, but for a new user it just complicated the onboarding experience. Not to mention, it’s unclear what the incentive to put real resources behind any of these clients is.
- brundolf 3y agoIt doesn't complicate the onboarding process though, because there's an official client and a default algo. That's Bluesky's whole thing: sensible defaults and easy onboarding, so it can be "just twitter" if you want it to be. But the open protocol and ecosystem that give you more options if/when you want them, and put pressure on the official ones to stay good
- ziml77 3y agoThat's really the key. Most people don't need to care. Bluesky is nice and easy for their needs. They just use the bsky.app website and the official Bluesky phone app. This is in contrast to Mastodon where people were told to pick an instance and not really guided to any one as the primary one (because Mastodon devs/users don't want there to be a thought that there even is a "primary" instance). People here on HN can claim picking an instance isn't a big deal all they want, but I can say with confidence it is. I'm in various furry artist Discord servers where people expressed their distaste for having to deal with the multiple instances.
- jjfoooo4 3y agoThe thread is discussing Blue Sky getting critical mass (ie casual users), my claim is that for this the algo and client choices are neutral to mildly negative value. Take that away you’re really back to “just Twitter” with fewer features and less content. I agree that algo and client choice would be a positive for a mature site like Twitter, but it’s unclear how a site with this strategy will get enough traction for the choices to be useful
- tgsovlerkhgsel 3y agoAlso, good. An idealistic, technical user might put up with the typical quality of early "alternative solution" apps, but seeing enough errors, crashes, unintuitive UX, and other hurdles, several times across several apps, will get most users to give up on the platform.
- CraftingLinks 3y agoAt least I can have an account on X. Accessible, are you joking?????