Why are people preferring Blue Sky over Mastodon?

It's shiny, they advertise, put in a money to spread the word. And the onboarding process probably is way easier?! Also back when Mastodon was in the media, it wasn't yet the right time. Now, especially with Musk, it is. And the attention is on Bluesky since that is newer and what's hyped right now.

Because it pretends to be different to the centralised corporate social media platforms, whilst giving the cohesive experience of a centralised platform

Bluesky allows me to use my domain as my identity and make my own moderation decisions without having to run my own instance.

We've had this exact conversation in this community two months ago already, in case you want to back read the comments from back then. Nothing significant has changed

To paraphrase my opinion from back then:

• Easier onboarding, and a familiar, easier UX
• customizable feeds you can subscribe to + starterpacks instantly give you full timelines and people to follow (and followers, if you're in many starter packs)
• better discoverability, and therefore higher engagement
• stacking moderation and excellent security features (e.g. detachable quote boosts, "the nuclear block")
• many users who tried Mastodon first had bad experiences with "HOA"-like behavior and over-enthusiastic mods

it's been better marketed, and people struggle with the concept of federation and picking a server. and I guess the invite-only, artificial exclusivity strat has actually paid off for them initially, unlike for Google+.

also, a matter of culture. I've seen many newcomers complain about how some long time users act as HOA, reminding everyone to act according to the long-standing rules. many people of colour have experience many forms of racist behaviour, too, which has driven some communities away.

oh, and the federation/defederation business sometimes gets way too messy, which [cynic mode on] makes it difficult for people who want their Personal Brand™ to gain as many followers as possible over the entire network.

It has an algorithm that puts content in front of you, unlike Mastodon where it only puts what you ask for in your feed. I'm convinced that if Mastodon populated people with low following count's feed with random posts it wouldn't have bled as many users as it did.

I'm dabbling in Bluesky atm. Having run my own Masto server for over a year at this point. Here's things I've found that Bluesky does just plain better - mostly cause it's not beholden to the whims of the ActivityPub protocol.

• Shows me all replies to any post I happen to come across.
• Lets me see all posts about things I happen to search/look for, including hashtags.
• I don't have to worry about being unable to see content I haven't personally blocked (not so much of an issue on a small/single server like mine though).
• I can repost things (not actually too bothered with this one but many people want it).
• I can set per post reply permissions to a very granular level (no-one, mentioned, followers, specific followers)
• It handles video in a way that works i.e. I can post them, and people can watch them with minimal buffering/waiting.
• Gives me access to community built collections/algorithms that expose the content I want to see.
• It defaults to providing an additional feed driven by what the people I'm following are liking/interacting with.
• Finally, a big one for new users, it provided a default feed of content when I first logged in so that I had something to look at.

The first two are huge on a small/single user server. By default we get nothing, following a single account will get us the content of just that account and the replies that they happen to reply to. A post may get 200 replies, but unless I go looking on the original server I will see a fraction of that. Technical solutions exist to help with this but the Fediverse's penchant for privacy and control (quite rightly) limits the effectiveness (Fedifetcher, GetMoarFedi).

3 is something most people won't think about. But if they become aware they're not seeing something they thought they'd be able to they then have to deep dive into who's defederating who and why.

Most all the other points just make the whole thing a much more seamless experience for your average user. Bootstrapping a list of people to follow on a small server is hard (I'd absolutely recommend creating a Fediverse account somewhere large first to build up some sort of list before migrating)

I can only assume BlueSky feels more familiar.

Mastodon requires a bit of effort, lacking an algorithm to drive content toward users, so you have to do a bit more yourself.

I think it’s much more difficult to find people to follow. I personally struggle a lot, and will likely either gave up the micro-blogging system or try another platform. It was great on Twitter before Musk bought it, but since I left, I have yet to find an alternative.

People want to leave X, but they still want the same old, rather than new stuff to make things better as a whole. They don't want to have to do this "pick a server" thing, they want to have an algorithm spoonfeed them popular content, and it would be best for them to have to put in zero extra effort. In Masto you have to put in the hashtags to get found, and search for and follow people and hashtags to find stuff you want, and essentially DIY-ing your feed seems to be too much work for people.

Simplicity.

I've got an idea as to why.

I went to mastodon.social and see a Linux meme, some heavy political commentary, and a bunch of posts about mastodon being better than Twitter.

I then went to bluesky.app and see some political riffing, cute animals, a comic, some jokes, a company, and even Don Lemon.

The average person checking them both out for the first time, mastodon is nerd shit and Bluesky is normal shit.

Unpopular opinion here, but: as opposed to other twitter clones like Hive Social and such, that also look sleek and are simple, but didn't go anywhere, Bluesky did manage to attract a sizeable crowd of creative and talented open source indie devs that are passionate about it and build cool stuff on atproto. Whether it's custom feeds or star sign labelers or alternative clients that add more features or entirely new appviews like the oekaki board PinkSea, you get the feeling it is a pretty vibrant ecosystem and this has sustained it all these months.

While this is true for the Fediverse as well, I think it's fair to say that there have been rumblings here about lack of direction and proper stewardship of the Fediverse and if you want this place to succeed you can't just sweep it under the rug, shrug your shoulders and say "well, people who pick Bluesky over Mastodon are just stupid".

Every platform and app I've seen does a piss poor job of explaining what federation is and how to sign up. "Wtf is mastodon.social?, Why is this one in German?, Why can't I login after signing up?" New users just get confused and give up.

@Sunshine I've shared my thoughts a couple times in similar threads 1 and 2, but to summarize:

One reason is because I think other protocols have some advantages. AT is better end user ease of use wise, and plans to let you control your account via a keypair (already possible with your own PDS). Nostr is more heavily decentralized and considerably more flexible than the other two. That can siphon off existing users or have new users drawn to those spaces. Not to say that ActivityPub doesn't also have its own advantages too, but everybody has different preferences and there's now more choice.

There's also some Activity Pub specific toxicity issues. Too aggressive defederation leads to a point where you can't communicate with most people, and there's some opinions in the space that have turned some people away.

But of course things go up and down, and are never a strait line. I'm guessing all three big protocols will continue to grow, and as they get more interconnected everybody wins, and even if Activity Pub has hit a slump the ecosystem of people you can talk to using it has grown 10x+.

Outside if summarizing my previous takes, there have been some new(ish) things I've seen that don't quite sit right. Things from the top down like the social web director refusing to go to conferences that people from other protocols will be present and encouraging people to not even talk about other protocols. Or - anicdotally - seeing random users happy that the influxes are going to others because they don't want 'normies' on Activity Pub or declaring anybody still using Twitter/X a Nazi sympathizer if not an outright Nazi. If the Activity Pub scene is getting really protectionist it could start also having a negative effect.

Again, overall I expect it to continue trending upwards, and there's a plethora of factors that are unrelated to anything negative regarding Activity Pub's community, but the above (and previous two posts) are the stuff I figured worth bringing up and potentially factors in why ActivityPub has seen weaker adoption compared to the other two big ones more recently.

I wrote an article on this last night.

https://aidanraymond.medium.com/why-bluesky-isnt-the-alternative-to-x-formerly-twitter-you-re-looking-for-and-why-mastodon-is-46c8901f2748

They’re venture funded by a crypto company.

The signs of imminent disaster.

Mastodon is clearly the correct choice.

Can you guys help explain it to someone completely inexperienced?

I had Twitter but only used it for following music venues to see upcoming events and bars for happy hour updates. I have a Mastodon account but only played with it for a few minutes because i didn't really get it. I don't understand following a person. What can one person have to say that i would care enough about to download an app. What am i missing?

whay, or rather who is Blue sky?

Americans love to pretend they are cowboys. In reality they love centralised power and bureaucracy. They are deeply afraid of each other so they flock to platforms that pretend to be for freedom, but is actually highly regulated by centralised power. That’s why they love tech-oligarchs that pretend to be self made geniuses. It allows them to fantasise about freedom to succeed and submit to power at the same time.