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I think Mastodon will have its place, but won’t grow much. BlueSky will grow more instead of Mastodon. Reasons: - BlueSky is mostly centralized and easier to u

by WA 2y ago

I think Mastodon will have its place, but won’t grow much. BlueSky will grow more instead of Mastodon. Reasons: - BlueSky is mostly centralized and easier to understand. No server choice stuff - BlueSky has the better name - BlueSky has the cleaner UI

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
I want to disagree with the first two of those: > BlueSky is mostly centralized and easier to understand. No server choice stuff It's not supposed to be this way even though it is right now. They're intending for it to be actually fully federated. But the "server choice" stuff is a bug in the existing design of Mastodon anyway. It shouldn't matter which server you pick because you should be able to change it at any time seamlessly, e.g. by uploading a copy of your posts to any other server, where your posts are backed up to your local device by default. So then the question is, does Bluesky repeat the error when they get around to it, or does Mastodon fix it with an update, or both or neither? But it's not inherently an advantage for Bluesky, unless they get it right and Mastodon doesn't fix it. > BlueSky has the better name The old thing was called Twitter, which is the same kind of parody of itself as Mastodon. Now it's called X, which is somehow even more of a parody of itself. It turns out having a silly name doesn't stop people from using it.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  BlueSky is also centralized in terms of search, for pragmatic reasons. You can search across every bluesky post and cannot on mastodon, for better or worse. I'm on mastadon, but its clearly harder to use, and theres way lower engagement.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    There is a difference between search being centralized (as in there is only one search provider) and just being indexed by third parties, in the same way as the whole web can be searched by both Google and Bing. The second one is clearly what you want for public posts, and could even be implemented locally for private posts (because then you don't have to index the whole internet, only the people you follow). It doesn't need to be centralized to work, and better if it isn't.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      To be fair, that second model is what bluesky has. You can run another indexer, but unlike mastadon where you only have to deal with interactions to posts that involve your instance's members, with bluesky you have to be able to keep up with the entire firehose at once. So its cost prohibitive for all but big orgs. It does mean search (and as importantly, likes and comments) are globally consistent so there's def a trade off.

by WA 2y ago

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

I want to disagree with the first two of those: > BlueSky is mostly centralized and easier to understand. No server choice stuff It's not supposed to be this way even though it is right now. They're intending for it to be actually fully federated. But the "server choice" stuff is a bug in the existing design of Mastodon anyway. It shouldn't matter which server you pick because you should be able to change it at any time seamlessly, e.g. by uploading a copy of your posts to any other server, where your posts are backed up to your local device by default. So then the question is, does Bluesky repeat the error when they get around to it, or does Mastodon fix it with an update, or both or neither? But it's not inherently an advantage for Bluesky, unless they get it right and Mastodon doesn't fix it. > BlueSky has the better name The old thing was called Twitter, which is the same kind of parody of itself as Mastodon. Now it's called X, which is somehow even more of a parody of itself. It turns out having a silly name doesn't stop people from using it.

spencerflem 2y ago
BlueSky is also centralized in terms of search, for pragmatic reasons. You can search across every bluesky post and cannot on mastodon, for better or worse. I'm on mastadon, but its clearly harder to use, and theres way lower engagement.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  There is a difference between search being centralized (as in there is only one search provider) and just being indexed by third parties, in the same way as the whole web can be searched by both Google and Bing. The second one is clearly what you want for public posts, and could even be implemented locally for private posts (because then you don't have to index the whole internet, only the people you follow). It doesn't need to be centralized to work, and better if it isn't.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    To be fair, that second model is what bluesky has. You can run another indexer, but unlike mastadon where you only have to deal with interactions to posts that involve your instance's members, with bluesky you have to be able to keep up with the entire firehose at once. So its cost prohibitive for all but big orgs. It does mean search (and as importantly, likes and comments) are globally consistent so there's def a trade off.