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What is the appeal of Bluesky? I'm surprised to see how much traction it has, when Mastodon already exists and works quite well technically - it seems that Blue

What is the appeal of Bluesky? I'm surprised to see how much traction it has, when Mastodon already exists and works quite well technically - it seems that Bluesky is simply better at marketing?

adamredwoods 2y ago
Convenience factor. Bluesky is single site. Mastodon is multiple sites.
- unshavedyak 2y ago
  I also find Bluesky's underlying tech interesting. The more i looked into Mastodon the less interesting it felt. I especially didn't like that as a small Mastodon instance i'd struggle to get my updates fed into the larger instances and struggle to get updates as quickly. Instances prioritized updates to/from larger instances. This was all quite early though and i'm sure i misunderstood things. Just answering the question as i personally perceived Mastodon. On the non-tech side, i find Bluesky's model for moderation to be really neat. I hope it continues to expand in features/implementations.
  - verdverm 2y ago
    Check out the User Intent proposal, it's kind of like robots.txt, not enforceable, but also richer in semantics https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0008-user-intents https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0008-u...
curious_cat_163 2y ago
I find the AT protocol interesting. But, now they have network effects; > 30 million users -- that's a big market to build for.
advisedwang 2y ago
For me, it's pure network effect. The people I want to hear from and be heard by are on Bluesky but not Mastodon.
lxgr 2y ago
It's a much better protocol in practice, in my view. Mastodon is server/instance centric and permanently anchors your identity to a given server. On Bluesky, you can use any domain you control DNS for as your handle, since content hosting and identity management are decoupled at the protocol layer. On top of that, hosting is also decoupled from aggregation/discovery, which allows for things like global search that are intrinsically hard on Mastodon.
- genewitch 2y ago
  > Mastodon is server/instance centric and permanently anchors your identity to a given server. On Bluesky, you can use any domain you control DNS for as your handle, since content hosting and identity management are decoupled at the protocol layer. What does this mean? I can host my own fediverse instance, and have, three times.
  - rglullis 2y ago
    It means that your identity is tied to the server. If you ever got tired of running your server and decided to just use someone else's server, you can not just bring your keys and make a DNS change to point to the new place.
    - mariusor 2y ago
      Just because there isn't such a mechanism in use currently, doesn't mean that there's something preventing ActivityPub actors using the same type of DNS pointing to DID, or IRI mechanism ATProtocol is using.
      - rglullis 2y ago
        There are some extensions proposed, but to this day all AP actors are controlled by the server. No ActivityPub software today is built in a way where the client can provide their own keys. They are all generated in the server. Even the "Client-to-Server" AP spec is written in a way where the "client" does not interact with the outside web, but always initiates every interaction through the outbox hosted by the server. I'm not saying this just for pedantry. I'm saying this because I actually wrote a server that implements ActivityPub according to the spec [0], and realized that identity portability is not possible unless you deliberately break away from the AP spec. [0]: https://activitypub.mushroomlabs.com https://activitypub.mushroomlabs.com
RicoElectrico 2y ago
Mastodon is fragmented by design, federation is mostly theoretical even if mastodon.social displays many other instances' content and lets you interact with it. You can't search across instances nor can you (afaik) maintain identity across them.
shawabawa3 2y ago
Had enough of shitty self hosted mastodon servers getting linked, makes me wary to click any mastodon link because they are so likely to be dead Imo that's a complete killer to adoption. The vibe people get from it is that it's always down, they don't care that "oh just switch to another shard" that's too much effort
- imhoguy 2y ago
  Yeah, it should be content addressable and replicated by Favourite (Like) similarly how IPFS pining works, then your post would die when the last hoarder forgets about it.
yborg 2y ago
Bluesky implements algorithmic feeds so content is easier to find. Mastodon mostly is original Twitter model - you have to follow accounts yourself. It's significant friction and filters 90% of normal people.
- genewitch 2y ago
  Algorithmic feeds, chicken soup for the soul.
nailer 2y ago
Bluesky appeals to people that don’t wish to meet or interact with anyone from the other side of the aisle - like a left wing version of Truth Social.
sergiotapia 2y ago
it's a turbo left version of truth social. so people into that flock to use bluesky.
globular-toast 2y ago
Centralised so easy to use. Why don't more people use PGP and web of trust? Convenience and security rarely align, and people will choose convenience every time.
KoftaBob 2y ago
Bluesky/AT Protocol hits a much better balance of mostly decentralized while having an intuitive user experience. On the other hand, ask the average social media user to try to do the below tasks on Mastodon/ActivityPub, and you'll quickly see how half-baked and disjointed of a user experience it is. - Search for posts or a user. - Interact with a Mastodon post that's on a different instance than the one they're registered to. - Figure out what to do if one day, they wake up and their instance has shut down.
gls2ro 2y ago
Here is one nice appeal: Has a great and free API. Now, Bluesky has this great API that allows you to do cool automated things on top of it. Twitter had it too, but they decided in the last 2, maybe 3 years, to play with the API so many times that there are no new coding tutorials that use Twitter API as an example. So except social media platforms, there are probably no more tools built on top of Twitter API as they damaged their reputation among developers. And they deserve it being so unfriendly towards developers.

What is the appeal of Bluesky? I'm surprised to see how much traction it has, when Mastodon already exists and works quite well technically - it seems that Bluesky is simply better at marketing?

adamredwoods 2y ago

Convenience factor. Bluesky is single site. Mastodon is multiple sites.

unshavedyak 2y ago
I also find Bluesky's underlying tech interesting. The more i looked into Mastodon the less interesting it felt. I especially didn't like that as a small Mastodon instance i'd struggle to get my updates fed into the larger instances and struggle to get updates as quickly. Instances prioritized updates to/from larger instances. This was all quite early though and i'm sure i misunderstood things. Just answering the question as i personally perceived Mastodon. On the non-tech side, i find Bluesky's model for moderation to be really neat. I hope it continues to expand in features/implementations.
- verdverm 2y ago
  Check out the User Intent proposal, it's kind of like robots.txt, not enforceable, but also richer in semantics https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0008-user-intents https://github.com/bluesky-social/proposals/tree/main/0008-u...

curious_cat_163 2y ago

I find the AT protocol interesting. But, now they have network effects; > 30 million users -- that's a big market to build for.

advisedwang 2y ago

For me, it's pure network effect. The people I want to hear from and be heard by are on Bluesky but not Mastodon.

lxgr 2y ago

It's a much better protocol in practice, in my view. Mastodon is server/instance centric and permanently anchors your identity to a given server. On Bluesky, you can use any domain you control DNS for as your handle, since content hosting and identity management are decoupled at the protocol layer. On top of that, hosting is also decoupled from aggregation/discovery, which allows for things like global search that are intrinsically hard on Mastodon.

genewitch 2y ago
> Mastodon is server/instance centric and permanently anchors your identity to a given server. On Bluesky, you can use any domain you control DNS for as your handle, since content hosting and identity management are decoupled at the protocol layer. What does this mean? I can host my own fediverse instance, and have, three times.
- rglullis 2y ago
  It means that your identity is tied to the server. If you ever got tired of running your server and decided to just use someone else's server, you can not just bring your keys and make a DNS change to point to the new place.
  - mariusor 2y ago
    Just because there isn't such a mechanism in use currently, doesn't mean that there's something preventing ActivityPub actors using the same type of DNS pointing to DID, or IRI mechanism ATProtocol is using.
    - rglullis 2y ago
      There are some extensions proposed, but to this day all AP actors are controlled by the server. No ActivityPub software today is built in a way where the client can provide their own keys. They are all generated in the server. Even the "Client-to-Server" AP spec is written in a way where the "client" does not interact with the outside web, but always initiates every interaction through the outbox hosted by the server. I'm not saying this just for pedantry. I'm saying this because I actually wrote a server that implements ActivityPub according to the spec [0], and realized that identity portability is not possible unless you deliberately break away from the AP spec. [0]: https://activitypub.mushroomlabs.com https://activitypub.mushroomlabs.com

RicoElectrico 2y ago

Mastodon is fragmented by design, federation is mostly theoretical even if mastodon.social displays many other instances' content and lets you interact with it. You can't search across instances nor can you (afaik) maintain identity across them.

shawabawa3 2y ago

Had enough of shitty self hosted mastodon servers getting linked, makes me wary to click any mastodon link because they are so likely to be dead Imo that's a complete killer to adoption. The vibe people get from it is that it's always down, they don't care that "oh just switch to another shard" that's too much effort

imhoguy 2y ago
Yeah, it should be content addressable and replicated by Favourite (Like) similarly how IPFS pining works, then your post would die when the last hoarder forgets about it.

yborg 2y ago

Bluesky implements algorithmic feeds so content is easier to find. Mastodon mostly is original Twitter model - you have to follow accounts yourself. It's significant friction and filters 90% of normal people.

genewitch 2y ago
Algorithmic feeds, chicken soup for the soul.

nailer 2y ago

Bluesky appeals to people that don’t wish to meet or interact with anyone from the other side of the aisle - like a left wing version of Truth Social.

sergiotapia 2y ago

it's a turbo left version of truth social. so people into that flock to use bluesky.

globular-toast 2y ago

Centralised so easy to use. Why don't more people use PGP and web of trust? Convenience and security rarely align, and people will choose convenience every time.

KoftaBob 2y ago

Bluesky/AT Protocol hits a much better balance of mostly decentralized while having an intuitive user experience. On the other hand, ask the average social media user to try to do the below tasks on Mastodon/ActivityPub, and you'll quickly see how half-baked and disjointed of a user experience it is. - Search for posts or a user. - Interact with a Mastodon post that's on a different instance than the one they're registered to. - Figure out what to do if one day, they wake up and their instance has shut down.

gls2ro 2y ago

Here is one nice appeal: Has a great and free API. Now, Bluesky has this great API that allows you to do cool automated things on top of it. Twitter had it too, but they decided in the last 2, maybe 3 years, to play with the API so many times that there are no new coding tutorials that use Twitter API as an example. So except social media platforms, there are probably no more tools built on top of Twitter API as they damaged their reputation among developers. And they deserve it being so unfriendly towards developers.