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Reading testimonials from people who seemingly enjoy Bluesky, it sounds like the main perk is its exclusiveness and feeling like the good old days when Twitter

by Sol- 3y ago

Reading testimonials from people who seemingly enjoy Bluesky, it sounds like the main perk is its exclusiveness and feeling like the good old days when Twitter was just for hardcore social media nerds? Is that that a recipe for success and wouldn't opening up undermine it? I don't see how any Twitter clone would avoid the pitfalls that make social media like Twitter fundamentally annoying. It's not about the technology or being federated or not, but about such internet-scale communities just not working well. You'll always end up with online drama about the silliest things and terminally online power users. Everybody hates Discord, but I think more communities should strive towards isolating themselves from the broader net to keep conversations civil.

WD-42 3y ago
This exactly. It’s not the platform, it’s the people. I think social networks work fine for small niche communities where conversion stays focused. The problem with all general social networks is that they eventually all devolve into political flame wars. Everyone is just over it.
- timeon 3y ago
  Niche communities around some topic work well if people that are interested come and go. But if the niche is artificially created by fact that community is gated, then such community is not sustainable. Cabin fever and general fatigue of users.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Reddit almost solved it because they figured out a way to make a large collection of small communities, but then that slumped into the melt as it was likely to do.
jeffbee 3y ago
I don't understand how people believe they just "end up" like that. You don't ever need to see celebrities and related junk online. Just follow your friends and don't follow anyone else.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  Stuff like that is automatically shoved into your feed.
  - jeffbee 3y ago
    On what platform? It's not true on bsky or twitter.
    - tcfhgj 3y ago
      It's true on Twitter.
      - jeffbee 3y ago
        Only if you read the algorithmic "For You" feed instead of the chronological "Following" feed.
- vineyardmike 3y ago
  The obvious answer is that people want it. I follow a bunch of musicians. I love going to concerts, and it’s the easiest way to find out when they announce tours. The unfortunate reality is that scalpers make buying tickets a terrible experience, so unfortunately I have a strong interest in knowing exactly when tickets go on sale to improve my own chances of getting tickets.
tootie 3y ago
My dream of social media utopia is that that we see a nonprofit organization who makes no bones about their moderation policy and enforcement or their revenue and expenses. I think centralization is just the only way a network can grow to useful size or behave predictably. It's not really a social network, but my model for this is Wikimedia. They've built something incredibly durable, centralized, aggressively moderated and financially viable.
- thinkingtoilet 3y ago
  >we see a nonprofit organization who makes no bones about their moderation policy The problem is that the rules will be made by humans and will be enforced by humans. This will never be even close to perfect, especially with bad actors which are inevitable when a platform gets popular enough.
  - tootie 3y ago
    I don't think the goal should ever be "perfect". The problem I see with any commercial endeavor (this is probably as sideways critique of capitalism) is that if you have profit as the superseding interest, it will always be in conflict with being fair or being inclusive. At the same time what someone like Elon Musk clearly doesn't understand is the fundamental conflict between having an environment that fosters fruitful conversation vs absolutist free speech. Just having a platform that has a clear number goal of "free sharing of information and idea" at the top says clearly that it will come before platforming troublemakers or letting advertisers put their finger on the scales.
tracker1 3y ago
I keep thinking something closer to BBS networks... There are local boards you can chat on, but also the network boards. Usually by topic or interest. It's not instant, like social media, but lends to longer communication. More like a self hosted, distributed Facebook group, less life Twitter.
jmull 3y ago
> internet-scale communities just not working well I think you have to dig into that, and figure out why internet-scale communities don't work well, and then whether or not bluesky addresses it. First of all, what does internet-scale really mean? I think it has to be that, to some degree, everyone is talking at everyone else. For twitter and some other social networks this is because users don't fully control their feed -- they see what an algorithm decides they should see... and the algorithm is designed to increase engagement... because ads are how the social network makes its money. So you have content creators competing to make the most engaging posts and twitter doing its best to deliver those posts. So I think it's probably twitter's ad driven business model, combined with the sad fact that it's a lot easier to engage people with anger and outrage than with civil, thoughtful content, that leads to a social media wasteland more than whether you need an invite to join. I don't know if it will work, but if bluesky stays away from an ad-driven business model, they can let people control their own feeds and creators aren't incentivized only for engagement and it might stay a nice place to visit and hang out.
flkiwi 3y ago
My experience on Bluesky was: 1. A direct port of the ragescrolling, today's-main-character culture of twitter 2. Complaining about mastodon and linux on a premise I haven't been able to tease out but appears to relate to open projects being inherently untrustworthy and private projects that receive funding being trustworthy. 3. Hyping Bluesky's ease of use (it is identical to Mastodon in every meaningful respect, except where Mastodon offers some additional functionality like private posts). I got out. I love a lot of the people that moved there, but the rage culture alone was what I originally left twitter to avoid. It's kind of a cultural AOL in the post-twitter-social space, with all that entails.
rurp 3y ago
I agree that internet-scale communities are pretty bad for many (maybe most) topics. But Discord goes too far in the other direction with terrible discoverability. Most posters who would be good contributers to a given group never learn of its existence. The old school forum model does the best job of threading that needle that I have seen so far. Forums are easy enough to stumble across when searching a relevant topic, while the narrow focus makes them less of a magnet for stupid trolls and attention seekers. Reddit solved the hosting and setup problems of a forum, but that company is so far into the enshittification spiral that it hardly seems like a worthwhile place to invest much focus. I wish that all of the neo-Twitter resources where going towards making better forum-like platforms that actually encourage thoughtful discussion while also leaving space for more lighthearted posting.

by Sol- 3y ago

WD-42 3y ago

This exactly. It’s not the platform, it’s the people. I think social networks work fine for small niche communities where conversion stays focused. The problem with all general social networks is that they eventually all devolve into political flame wars. Everyone is just over it.

timeon 3y ago
Niche communities around some topic work well if people that are interested come and go. But if the niche is artificially created by fact that community is gated, then such community is not sustainable. Cabin fever and general fatigue of users.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Reddit almost solved it because they figured out a way to make a large collection of small communities, but then that slumped into the melt as it was likely to do.

jeffbee 3y ago

I don't understand how people believe they just "end up" like that. You don't ever need to see celebrities and related junk online. Just follow your friends and don't follow anyone else.

tcfhgj 3y ago
Stuff like that is automatically shoved into your feed.
- jeffbee 3y ago
  On what platform? It's not true on bsky or twitter.
  - tcfhgj 3y ago
    It's true on Twitter.
    - jeffbee 3y ago
      Only if you read the algorithmic "For You" feed instead of the chronological "Following" feed.
vineyardmike 3y ago
The obvious answer is that people want it. I follow a bunch of musicians. I love going to concerts, and it’s the easiest way to find out when they announce tours. The unfortunate reality is that scalpers make buying tickets a terrible experience, so unfortunately I have a strong interest in knowing exactly when tickets go on sale to improve my own chances of getting tickets.

tootie 3y ago

My dream of social media utopia is that that we see a nonprofit organization who makes no bones about their moderation policy and enforcement or their revenue and expenses. I think centralization is just the only way a network can grow to useful size or behave predictably. It's not really a social network, but my model for this is Wikimedia. They've built something incredibly durable, centralized, aggressively moderated and financially viable.

thinkingtoilet 3y ago
>we see a nonprofit organization who makes no bones about their moderation policy The problem is that the rules will be made by humans and will be enforced by humans. This will never be even close to perfect, especially with bad actors which are inevitable when a platform gets popular enough.
- tootie 3y ago
  I don't think the goal should ever be "perfect". The problem I see with any commercial endeavor (this is probably as sideways critique of capitalism) is that if you have profit as the superseding interest, it will always be in conflict with being fair or being inclusive. At the same time what someone like Elon Musk clearly doesn't understand is the fundamental conflict between having an environment that fosters fruitful conversation vs absolutist free speech. Just having a platform that has a clear number goal of "free sharing of information and idea" at the top says clearly that it will come before platforming troublemakers or letting advertisers put their finger on the scales.

tracker1 3y ago

I keep thinking something closer to BBS networks... There are local boards you can chat on, but also the network boards. Usually by topic or interest. It's not instant, like social media, but lends to longer communication. More like a self hosted, distributed Facebook group, less life Twitter.

jmull 3y ago

> internet-scale communities just not working well I think you have to dig into that, and figure out why internet-scale communities don't work well, and then whether or not bluesky addresses it. First of all, what does internet-scale really mean? I think it has to be that, to some degree, everyone is talking at everyone else. For twitter and some other social networks this is because users don't fully control their feed -- they see what an algorithm decides they should see... and the algorithm is designed to increase engagement... because ads are how the social network makes its money. So you have content creators competing to make the most engaging posts and twitter doing its best to deliver those posts. So I think it's probably twitter's ad driven business model, combined with the sad fact that it's a lot easier to engage people with anger and outrage than with civil, thoughtful content, that leads to a social media wasteland more than whether you need an invite to join. I don't know if it will work, but if bluesky stays away from an ad-driven business model, they can let people control their own feeds and creators aren't incentivized only for engagement and it might stay a nice place to visit and hang out.

flkiwi 3y ago

My experience on Bluesky was: 1. A direct port of the ragescrolling, today's-main-character culture of twitter 2. Complaining about mastodon and linux on a premise I haven't been able to tease out but appears to relate to open projects being inherently untrustworthy and private projects that receive funding being trustworthy. 3. Hyping Bluesky's ease of use (it is identical to Mastodon in every meaningful respect, except where Mastodon offers some additional functionality like private posts). I got out. I love a lot of the people that moved there, but the rage culture alone was what I originally left twitter to avoid. It's kind of a cultural AOL in the post-twitter-social space, with all that entails.

rurp 3y ago

I agree that internet-scale communities are pretty bad for many (maybe most) topics. But Discord goes too far in the other direction with terrible discoverability. Most posters who would be good contributers to a given group never learn of its existence. The old school forum model does the best job of threading that needle that I have seen so far. Forums are easy enough to stumble across when searching a relevant topic, while the narrow focus makes them less of a magnet for stupid trolls and attention seekers. Reddit solved the hosting and setup problems of a forum, but that company is so far into the enshittification spiral that it hardly seems like a worthwhile place to invest much focus. I wish that all of the neo-Twitter resources where going towards making better forum-like platforms that actually encourage thoughtful discussion while also leaving space for more lighthearted posting.