4 ms·

On boarding is too complicated for your average social user https://atproto.com https://atproto.com has more of the developer mindshare now

lutoma 1y ago
It's also effectively centralized. Of course that makes the experience easier.
- verdverm 1y ago
  If you cannot reach UX that normal people will use, you're building for the very few tradeoffs are acceptable to help our social fabric to take a step in a better direction and away from corporate silos and the attention economy
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    Except that usernames contain a domain name component, and the “bare” username likely isn’t globally unique, the UX is nearly the same as other microblogs. And as to that username bit, people are used to joe@gmail.com and joe@outlook.com being different people, and having to specify which one they’re trying to send an email to. Everyone who’s both email and Twitter already understands all the basic concepts.
    - verdverm 1y ago
      > And as to that username bit, people are used to joe@gmail.com and joe@outlook.com being different people, and having to specify which one they’re trying to send an email to. User handles are unique in ATProto because of the domain, just like email. Not sure what the "except" part is about. Can you clarify? In ATProto, they are not "bare" ActivityPub is the same, except they are tied to the server you join. In ATProto, they are decoupled from your data host so you can move your data and server without changing your handle. You can also change your handle without moving anything else, because handle points to a DID behind the scenes
      - kstrauser 1y ago
        Ah, to be clear, I was thinking of ActivityPub. How’s ATProto work for the 99.9% of people who don’t own domains?
        cmckn 1y ago
        You just get a *.bsky.social handle.
RobotToaster 1y ago
It's another centralised service
Zak 1y ago
The thing I really don't love about ATProto is its decision, or that of its dominant implementation to enforce a schema ("lexicon") on content, limiting interoperation between disparate software. This violates the Old Internet idea of software being liberal about what it accepts. For a concrete example, I tagged a Lemmy community in a Mastodon post today. Lemmy is Reddit-like and Mastodon is Twitter-like, but it displays reasonable on Lemmy using the first line of the post as a title and expanding to the attached image when clicked in the default Lemmy UI. I can also post a long-form article on Wordpress (with a plugin) and have it show up in Mastodon even though it has a short character limit by default.
- verdverm 1y ago
  That's an incorrect assessment Lexicon schema are not enforced, they are a tool for social coordination, and most implementations are very liberal in what they accept https://www.pfrazee.com/blog/lexicon-guidance https://www.pfrazee.com/blog/lexicon-guidance > isTool: true; isRule: false; meaning: undefined ActivityPub by contrast lacks such social coordination and many apps are reusing the same schema for very different concepts, leading to its own form of over-complexity
tcfhgj 1y ago
how do you measure "too complicted"?
- verdverm 1y ago
  Didn't measure what complicated means, these are the words people who churned use Generally the first point is server selection. That's too complicated for most users
  - tcfhgj 1y ago
    Somehow I doubt it is. People are capable of selecting phones, phone network providers, e-mail providers, Internet providers, but selecting a server for mastodon is too complicated? Don't buy it
    - verdverm 1y ago
      > Don't buy it Not listening to users is when learning stops You are making bad analogies, instead compare AP to other social media networks and what users expect when signing up
      - tcfhgj 1y ago
        > You are making bad analogies, instead compare AP to other social media networks and what users expect when signing up I don't. I make these analogies, because they show that almost everyone is able to deal with the complexity of selecting a service provider. I acknowledge that it is not their expected sign up flow, though, because they you can only expect what you already know.
  - SoftTalker 1y ago
    That’s actually why I never tried it. Server selection. Choice paralysis. Gave up.
    - tcfhgj 1y ago

lutoma 1y ago

It's also effectively centralized. Of course that makes the experience easier.

verdverm 1y ago
If you cannot reach UX that normal people will use, you're building for the very few tradeoffs are acceptable to help our social fabric to take a step in a better direction and away from corporate silos and the attention economy
- kstrauser 1y ago
  Except that usernames contain a domain name component, and the “bare” username likely isn’t globally unique, the UX is nearly the same as other microblogs. And as to that username bit, people are used to joe@gmail.com and joe@outlook.com being different people, and having to specify which one they’re trying to send an email to. Everyone who’s both email and Twitter already understands all the basic concepts.
  - verdverm 1y ago
    > And as to that username bit, people are used to joe@gmail.com and joe@outlook.com being different people, and having to specify which one they’re trying to send an email to. User handles are unique in ATProto because of the domain, just like email. Not sure what the "except" part is about. Can you clarify? In ATProto, they are not "bare" ActivityPub is the same, except they are tied to the server you join. In ATProto, they are decoupled from your data host so you can move your data and server without changing your handle. You can also change your handle without moving anything else, because handle points to a DID behind the scenes
    - kstrauser 1y ago
      Ah, to be clear, I was thinking of ActivityPub. How’s ATProto work for the 99.9% of people who don’t own domains?
      - cmckn 1y ago
        You just get a *.bsky.social handle.

RobotToaster 1y ago

It's another centralised service

Zak 1y ago

The thing I really don't love about ATProto is its decision, or that of its dominant implementation to enforce a schema ("lexicon") on content, limiting interoperation between disparate software. This violates the Old Internet idea of software being liberal about what it accepts. For a concrete example, I tagged a Lemmy community in a Mastodon post today. Lemmy is Reddit-like and Mastodon is Twitter-like, but it displays reasonable on Lemmy using the first line of the post as a title and expanding to the attached image when clicked in the default Lemmy UI. I can also post a long-form article on Wordpress (with a plugin) and have it show up in Mastodon even though it has a short character limit by default.

verdverm 1y ago
That's an incorrect assessment Lexicon schema are not enforced, they are a tool for social coordination, and most implementations are very liberal in what they accept https://www.pfrazee.com/blog/lexicon-guidance https://www.pfrazee.com/blog/lexicon-guidance > isTool: true; isRule: false; meaning: undefined ActivityPub by contrast lacks such social coordination and many apps are reusing the same schema for very different concepts, leading to its own form of over-complexity

tcfhgj 1y ago

how do you measure "too complicted"?

verdverm 1y ago
Didn't measure what complicated means, these are the words people who churned use Generally the first point is server selection. That's too complicated for most users
- tcfhgj 1y ago
  Somehow I doubt it is. People are capable of selecting phones, phone network providers, e-mail providers, Internet providers, but selecting a server for mastodon is too complicated? Don't buy it
  - verdverm 1y ago
    > Don't buy it Not listening to users is when learning stops You are making bad analogies, instead compare AP to other social media networks and what users expect when signing up
    - tcfhgj 1y ago
      > You are making bad analogies, instead compare AP to other social media networks and what users expect when signing up I don't. I make these analogies, because they show that almost everyone is able to deal with the complexity of selecting a service provider. I acknowledge that it is not their expected sign up flow, though, because they you can only expect what you already know.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  That’s actually why I never tried it. Server selection. Choice paralysis. Gave up.
  - tcfhgj 1y ago