On the surface, both of them look very similar in format. They also both advertise themselves as decentralized and different from traditional social media, arguing that they won’t face the same problems.
Mastodon uses ActivityPub, which is the widely used standard that most other fediverse platforms use. Mastodon is properly decentralized, where all the servers can interact and operate independently.
BlueSky made their own standard, citing that ActivityPub wasn’t enough for what they wanted to do, and in some ways that’s true. However with their structure, a centralized relay is needed in order for different instances to interact and so people argue that it isn’t truly decentralized. BlueSky is either the only instance, or basically the only instance.
BlueSky is also a VC backed company while Mastodon is now under a nonprofit. BlueSky has its roots in crypto tech.
My personal opinion is that I really hope bluesky does what they’re promising, but I’m not expecting them to be any different than Twitter once they get a critical mass of users and the investors demand profits / infinite growth.
from what i understand, a decentralized bluesky is nothing for an enduser at all.
TL;DR: the cost for an enduser to run a bluesky instance will soon be prohibitive because of the amount of storage needed owed to its shared heap architecture. but what it does is to provide a “credible exit” - if users lose trust or the company shutters, there’s nothing in the way of another organisation picking up the mantle and continue from there on.
For me the advantage of Bluesky is that I can own my identity. I can reserve myusername@mydomain.tld and use that, without having to run my own instance.
With Mastodon I’d have to put up a full-ass server instance and worry about federation etc just to have my “own” identity instead of myusername@mastodon.social or something
BlueSky made their own protocol that they control, citing that ActivityPub wasn’t enough for what they wanted to do
Sounds like bullshit for useful idiots that don’t know what they’re talking about.
PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Bluesky is what happens when someone with a corporate mindset wants to make something new and good. Mastodon happens when hobbyists get together and make something. Ive heard BlueSky has a board of people in charge to make sure it doesn’t end up like twitter. Exactly what one would expect a company to do. Make sure something doesnt go wrong? Put a few people in charge. Mastodon just has the whole community. I may be wrong here as I dont use either. Right now Im just wondering what will happen when BlueSkys provider comes knocking with the hosting bill.