preaching to the choir
The Social Network That Can't Sell Out: Understanding Mastodon vs. Bluesky
Submitted 3 weeks ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to fediverse@lemmy.world
https://phillipjreese.com/the-social-network-that-cant-sell-out-understanding-mastodon-vs-bluesky/
Comments
fuzzy_feeling@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
naught101@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Still useful to post though, it’s a decent simple over view that can be shared elsewhere
M33@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
All true. And yet sadly until mastodon or better say another fediverse instance do have algorithms and a brain dead stupid onboarding and hyper cool phone apps, that will not do for 99% of the people.
Kirk@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
There will always be two types of users: people looking to connect and people looking to be entertained. Fedi is better at the former and commercial better at the latter.
Ladislawgrowlo@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
I would argue the latter group, searching entertainment, “lurkers” are always the bigger group.
TORFdot0@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s still worth it to red-pill people of the harms these algorithms cause and accept smaller network sizes that exclude people who refuse to “quit smoking” so to speak.
tastysaganaki@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
I have a good friend that I have ALMOST convinced to join Mastodon. He’s considering a username still, but I keep hounding him to make his account. Despite being politically / socially left, he’s generally not got the strong feelings I have toward the pros of a decentralized social media platform. I seemingly convinced him that simply it’s different / interesting you’ll see stuff you won’t generally see on mainstream social media, and you control what you see AND it’s not ever going to have ads or be corporate-run. But I still think he’s not necessarily sold on the idea. This is my very close friend. As for people I am more casually acquainted with? I don’t think I’ll ever get anyone else to join. As someone else in the comments said, essentially, “who cares? This isn’t for those people”, to which I largely agree. I think people need to come to the fediverse on their own accord or will forever feel like it’s just some aggro tech bro space. My aforementioned friend who I describe above for what it’s worth was adamant that Mastodon is “for right wingers”. I had to politely insist while I’m sure there are far right instances, these are not what I’ve experienced AND the official Mastodon site promotes instances that are antiracist and anti-bigotry.
Anyway, my biggest wish for the fediverse is that it grows as far as more artists, bands, news sources, etc. join. I still really like it as is, but it’ll only enhance things to have more variety of sources and voices onboard.
pineapplelover@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
From my experience, just use it and make it seem appealing. Maybe send him mastadon stuff from time to time and he’ll warm up to the idea. I mean I don’t get what’s too hard about it, it’s kinda like email.
Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
I just don’t like the model of it. Quick, jabby posts without much banter, and most of the news here makes it there anywyay.
yigruzeltil@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Bluesky is ALREADY cracking down on accounts for political reason, that's all one needs to know to figure out they need at least to have backup accounts on Mastodon or Friendica:
https://www.turkishminute.com/2025/04/17/bluesky-restrict-access-72-account-turk-amid-government-pressure/chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I don’t use these so maybe I’m missing something, but why would you have to choose? Bluesky is centralized but it seems like its design is committed enough to open technology that it would take them a long time to walk it back, and in the meantime there shouldn’t be barriers to using unified clients that put content from both in the same interface, and possibly override any opinionated content algorithm from the company (not sure if that’s feasible or not).
p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Bluesky is centralized but it seems like its design is committed enough to open technology that it would take them a long time to walk it back
Let’s not forget that Reddit’s code is open source. Just because their technology is open doesn’t mean that the data, usage, and network are protected.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Open source code doesn’t mean open API though. Bluesky seems to have made a whole thing out of their technical architecture, and I get the arguments that it’s centralized in practice, but wouldn’t it mean basically scrapping the whole thing to lock down third party clients? Even if that didn’t mean anything I think multiclients could be a good idea anyway, if people were using those and there was a Reddit situation, some portion of users would want to stay with the same clients rather than using whatever proprietary app they try to push.
PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 3 weeks ago
Mastodon could be cool.
But lemmy is the killer app for activity pub
warmaster@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Mastodon is already bigger than Lemmy. Just as Twitter was always bigger than Reddit. Long form text is always less popular. Pictures and videos are more popular than short form text, that’s why Instagram is bigger than X. We’ll see how Pixelfed grows in the coming years.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Can’t sell it because it sucks to use lmao
Ladislawgrowlo@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Searching for posts without hashtags and following others from different instances sucks, yeah. Sometimes you can not even view replies from different instances and need to visit their instance.
PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 3 weeks ago
Bankrupt billionaire businesses
kibiz0r@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
I look forward to the documentary.
“Mastodon: Victory Through Technical Superiority”, available soon on Laserdisc and Betamax
eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
I don’t think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it’s superior technology.
What mastodon isn’t is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don’t feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that’s fine. I want to talk to people who think I’m human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
coacoamelky@lemm.ee 3 weeks ago
Feeling like the mastodon crowd are preaching on soap boxes here. Not a bad product but will it attract the general public, probably not .
roofuskit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
When they are out of sinking ships to scurry to.
naught101@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t think anyone is claiming technical superiority. And certainly not financial superiority.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
ameancow@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This isn’t going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn’t just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
Maybe.