7 ms·

Seems like a fun growth hacking way to grow Bluesky as well. I made an account just to test it out, haha

garganzol 9mo ago
There is no question that for-profit social network projects will end up as Twitter did. The only question is when. Ideally, the comment system should be either self-hosted or more fediverse-like. The rest is a temporary compromise that will sink in the sands of time.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 9mo ago
  Mastodon had their shot and people found it too confusing.
  - soulofmischief 9mo ago
    My biggest turnoff has been the fact that you don't own your own data/account and are beholden to whichever dictator(s) run the instance you started out on. You can migrate, but that entire process is just convoluted. I should be able to create an account with my own keys and use them anywhere. Servers can choose to use and share allowlists or blocklists. Each instance being its own little world kills discovery and adds a ton of friction. And instances seem to be pretty heavy on resources. Reminds me of why Matrix never really took off, running a Matrix server is just too difficult and time-consuming for what you get out of it. I know proponents of Mastodon will point out that you can work around these warts, but I don't want to. I don't think the model is suited for me.
    - tolerance 9mo ago
      I’m not 100% sure but I think you essentially described how Nostr works in your first paragraph.
      - soulofmischief 9mo ago
        Noster is cool, I've experimented with it but it doesn't solve all of my problems and has some problems of its own, such as spam. Most importantly, it's not really P2P, despite being decentralized. I have also explored other P2P approaches and built prototype social networks. I prefer a more P2P approach, I think it's more scalable, but it's complicated because IP privacy by default is important in large social networks. I'm still searching for the right solution. I think the advances in LLMs are going to help do a much better job at solving the moderation problem in social networks, and so I am experimenting with that in my off time.
      - lagniappe 9mo ago
        Does Nostr have many users these days?
      - xigoi 9mo ago
        Nostr could be great if it wasn’t tightly integrated with cryptocurrency, to the point of using Bitcoin payments as upvotes.
  - cyode 9mo ago
    Not sure why above is downvoted. You’re right. Google Trends reveals how much of a flash in the pan Mastodon was post-Twitter: https://imgur.com/a/i2Vq9FR https://imgur.com/a/i2Vq9FR Social media needs to be very simple for the masses to adopt. The elevator pitch needs to be one sentence and must not include the word “server”.
    - jsheard 9mo ago
      > The elevator pitch needs to be one sentence and must not include the word “server”. Unless you're Discord, who got away with it by redefining "server" to mean something else.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
      - arjvik 9mo ago
        As far as I remember, they called it a Guild in all their developer documentation
        jsheard 9mo ago
        Yeah that was the original name they came up with, and it stuck internally. Makes sense as they need to distinguish the "servers" from the actual servers.
    - krapp 9mo ago
      Mastodon doesn't need to be "adopted by the masses" to be successful. I and plenty of other people are perfectly fine happy with it (and I use Mastodon comments for my blog.) I don't understand the knee-jerk reactions whenever Mastodon comes up here. Someone always has to declare it dead, someone always has to rant about "leftist politics" and "fascist moderators." And then they usually suggest Nostr which is far more dead than Mastodon. Nothing is perfect - Mastodon does have its rough edges - but even a moderately successful breakaway from mainstream social media is worth celebrating. I remember when the consensus on HN was that any alternative to the mainstream would be impossible, doomed to fail. The fediverse has its community and its identity, it isn't a flash in the pan.
  - skybrian 9mo ago
    They're not the biggest, but big enough to have a lot of active accounts, so I think they're likely to persist and get more than one shot on goal. (Similarly for Bluesky.)
  - elsjaako 9mo ago
    I know I shouldn't react this way, but this view that Mastodon can only be successful if it's the largest platform out there always gets under my skin. There are about a million active users of the fediverse, and I know plenty of us find it nice right now. Active users are measured in different ways by different platforms, so if we compare registered users, fedi has 12.5M compared to 42M for Bluesky. So it's approximately 25% of the size. It's not the best place to go if you want to get a large following, and it's not Serious Business, but as a user that's not what I want from a social platform. I have plenty of people to follow who are talking about things that interest me. You're welcome to come have a look if you want, but otherwise no worries. We're doing fine. Maybe you'll check it out sometime when some drama happens at Bluesky. The fediverse is not going away any time soon.
    - jeffhwang 9mo ago
      It's probably user error on my part. But as a somewhat technical user, I've been locked out of Mastodon account for months for no discernible reason. I had my standard first name and last name and I'm on one of the biggest Mastodon servers (mastodon.social). I suppose I could just create a brand new account or move to another server but it hasn't seemed worth the effort so far
      - elsjaako 9mo ago
        It is a more complex system than having a single central organization. Not every interest is well represented, so there may not be a lot of content for everyone. I've never had a mastodon.social account, but I can understand the frustration of having technical issues. If you really wanted to join, like you said, you can just try joining on a different server or even software - with other social networks you generally don't get that choice. But it looks like you gave it a try and made the rational choice that, for you, it's not worth that effort. But just because it's not your thing, and it's not the biggest one out there, doesn't mean it failed or missed it's shot. Personally I think it's pretty amazing that an open source project, with no VC money or marketing department or big corporate tie in, has about a million active users, and has for a long time now.
- vvpan 9mo ago
  I disagree. I think ATProtocol found a pretty good balance for de/centralization. Yes most people are on Bluesky PDSs but the data is easy to backup and move and Mastodon does not improve on that afaik.
  - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
    If BlueSky is the only aggregator that people are subscribing to, what's the point of being able to 'move' your PDS?
    - vvpan 9mo ago
      It is so easy and cheap to run your own aggregator that people run their own. If Bluesky goes down it'd be trivial to use something else.
      - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
        AppView yes, but a Relay is not so trivial, not to mention identity providers.
irishcoffee 9mo ago
It’s hard for something to succeed when the selling point is “we aren’t that other thing!” Edit to remove unintended flame bait.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- tpdly 9mo ago
  True, but Bluesky really does solve pains that closed platforms can’t/won’t. Having a choice over your algorithm is like getting lead out of your pipes, or getting a bidet or something.
  - irishcoffee 9mo ago
    I am a bidet convert, they are fantastic. I never used twitter and I don't use bsky, so I'm not sure how different they are. I just don't think that should be the goal.
kmfrk 9mo ago
stream.place[1] operates in a similar way but for stream livechats! We haven't even begun to scratch the surface on how Bluesky comments are going to be used, apparently. [1]: https://stream.place https://stream.place

There is no question that for-profit social network projects will end up as Twitter did. The only question is when. Ideally, the comment system should be either self-hosted or more fediverse-like. The rest is a temporary compromise that will sink in the sands of time.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
guelo 9mo ago
Mastodon had their shot and people found it too confusing.
- soulofmischief 9mo ago
  My biggest turnoff has been the fact that you don't own your own data/account and are beholden to whichever dictator(s) run the instance you started out on. You can migrate, but that entire process is just convoluted. I should be able to create an account with my own keys and use them anywhere. Servers can choose to use and share allowlists or blocklists. Each instance being its own little world kills discovery and adds a ton of friction. And instances seem to be pretty heavy on resources. Reminds me of why Matrix never really took off, running a Matrix server is just too difficult and time-consuming for what you get out of it. I know proponents of Mastodon will point out that you can work around these warts, but I don't want to. I don't think the model is suited for me.
  - tolerance 9mo ago
    I’m not 100% sure but I think you essentially described how Nostr works in your first paragraph.
    - soulofmischief 9mo ago
      Noster is cool, I've experimented with it but it doesn't solve all of my problems and has some problems of its own, such as spam. Most importantly, it's not really P2P, despite being decentralized. I have also explored other P2P approaches and built prototype social networks. I prefer a more P2P approach, I think it's more scalable, but it's complicated because IP privacy by default is important in large social networks. I'm still searching for the right solution. I think the advances in LLMs are going to help do a much better job at solving the moderation problem in social networks, and so I am experimenting with that in my off time.
    - lagniappe 9mo ago
      Does Nostr have many users these days?
    - xigoi 9mo ago
      Nostr could be great if it wasn’t tightly integrated with cryptocurrency, to the point of using Bitcoin payments as upvotes.
- cyode 9mo ago
  Not sure why above is downvoted. You’re right. Google Trends reveals how much of a flash in the pan Mastodon was post-Twitter: https://imgur.com/a/i2Vq9FR https://imgur.com/a/i2Vq9FR Social media needs to be very simple for the masses to adopt. The elevator pitch needs to be one sentence and must not include the word “server”.
  - jsheard 9mo ago
    > The elevator pitch needs to be one sentence and must not include the word “server”. Unless you're Discord, who got away with it by redefining "server" to mean something else.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
    - arjvik 9mo ago
      As far as I remember, they called it a Guild in all their developer documentation
      - jsheard 9mo ago
        Yeah that was the original name they came up with, and it stuck internally. Makes sense as they need to distinguish the "servers" from the actual servers.
  - krapp 9mo ago
    Mastodon doesn't need to be "adopted by the masses" to be successful. I and plenty of other people are perfectly fine happy with it (and I use Mastodon comments for my blog.) I don't understand the knee-jerk reactions whenever Mastodon comes up here. Someone always has to declare it dead, someone always has to rant about "leftist politics" and "fascist moderators." And then they usually suggest Nostr which is far more dead than Mastodon. Nothing is perfect - Mastodon does have its rough edges - but even a moderately successful breakaway from mainstream social media is worth celebrating. I remember when the consensus on HN was that any alternative to the mainstream would be impossible, doomed to fail. The fediverse has its community and its identity, it isn't a flash in the pan.
- skybrian 9mo ago
  They're not the biggest, but big enough to have a lot of active accounts, so I think they're likely to persist and get more than one shot on goal. (Similarly for Bluesky.)
- elsjaako 9mo ago
  I know I shouldn't react this way, but this view that Mastodon can only be successful if it's the largest platform out there always gets under my skin. There are about a million active users of the fediverse, and I know plenty of us find it nice right now. Active users are measured in different ways by different platforms, so if we compare registered users, fedi has 12.5M compared to 42M for Bluesky. So it's approximately 25% of the size. It's not the best place to go if you want to get a large following, and it's not Serious Business, but as a user that's not what I want from a social platform. I have plenty of people to follow who are talking about things that interest me. You're welcome to come have a look if you want, but otherwise no worries. We're doing fine. Maybe you'll check it out sometime when some drama happens at Bluesky. The fediverse is not going away any time soon.
  - jeffhwang 9mo ago
    It's probably user error on my part. But as a somewhat technical user, I've been locked out of Mastodon account for months for no discernible reason. I had my standard first name and last name and I'm on one of the biggest Mastodon servers (mastodon.social). I suppose I could just create a brand new account or move to another server but it hasn't seemed worth the effort so far
    - elsjaako 9mo ago
      It is a more complex system than having a single central organization. Not every interest is well represented, so there may not be a lot of content for everyone. I've never had a mastodon.social account, but I can understand the frustration of having technical issues. If you really wanted to join, like you said, you can just try joining on a different server or even software - with other social networks you generally don't get that choice. But it looks like you gave it a try and made the rational choice that, for you, it's not worth that effort. But just because it's not your thing, and it's not the biggest one out there, doesn't mean it failed or missed it's shot. Personally I think it's pretty amazing that an open source project, with no VC money or marketing department or big corporate tie in, has about a million active users, and has for a long time now.
vvpan 9mo ago
I disagree. I think ATProtocol found a pretty good balance for de/centralization. Yes most people are on Bluesky PDSs but the data is easy to backup and move and Mastodon does not improve on that afaik.
- jazzyjackson 9mo ago
  If BlueSky is the only aggregator that people are subscribing to, what's the point of being able to 'move' your PDS?
  - vvpan 9mo ago
    It is so easy and cheap to run your own aggregator that people run their own. If Bluesky goes down it'd be trivial to use something else.
    - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
      AppView yes, but a Relay is not so trivial, not to mention identity providers.

irishcoffee 9mo ago

It’s hard for something to succeed when the selling point is “we aren’t that other thing!” Edit to remove unintended flame bait.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
tpdly 9mo ago
True, but Bluesky really does solve pains that closed platforms can’t/won’t. Having a choice over your algorithm is like getting lead out of your pipes, or getting a bidet or something.
- irishcoffee 9mo ago
  I am a bidet convert, they are fantastic. I never used twitter and I don't use bsky, so I'm not sure how different they are. I just don't think that should be the goal.

kmfrk 9mo ago

stream.place[1] operates in a similar way but for stream livechats! We haven't even begun to scratch the surface on how Bluesky comments are going to be used, apparently. [1]: https://stream.place https://stream.place