What made everyone move to Bluesky or Threads instead of Mastodon?
What made everybody move from a corporate social media platform to another corporate social media platform instead of the fediverse?
After all, the Fediverse and Activitypub is much more mature than Bluesky and the copycat AT protocol or Threads and ... whatever they use.
and I'm saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.
2 and 3 are massive. I'm on Mastodon, but am having a much better time on Bluesky. Mastodon is full of gatekeeping and policing and people complaining - Bluesky is just fun and interesting, like Twitter 12 years ago
Who are these people who actually FIND users go follow on either service???
I have Bluesky. I have Mastodon. I log into each every few months, realize nothing has changed, and there is nobody to follow.
Then I don't use either, until I wonder a few months later "heeeey, I wonder if people are on these services yet......"
Still no.
The over policing thing is so true. I’ve gotten messages from techhub.social mods with warnings about making jokes that even hinted at breaking one of their precious rules. Like if I did something wrong, ban me I guess. It’s pretty clear I didn’t and the mod just wanted to flex his power towards me.
like Twitter 12 years ago
So don't use it then. Gotcha.
Regarding 2: you can also join the Fediverse this way with certain clients I believe. You are automatically signed up for lemmy.world for example
I'm not on any of the services currently, but I have tried Mastodon in the past and point 4. was what made me bounce off it. I know Mastodon flaunts its algorithm-free feed as almost a point of pride, but as a user it just doesn't do it for me. I could not get it to serve me the type of content I wanted the way I wanted, and it just felt like way too much work for what I was looking for.
I solved this issue by following multiple tags that interest me. People tend to tag their posts on Mastodon it seems, so discovering posts about, say, wine and cacti is as easy as following #wine #cactus #cacti #redwine #oragewine and so on and so forth - it's working pretty good for me without an algorithm recommending stuff to me, maybe it's worth a try?
Marketing, sure, but the onboarding from Instagram was a massive factor for Threads growth.
If Mastodon wins out in the long run the only reason will be persistence.
All these other "like Twitter but ______" micro blogging or whatever sites only stay viable while they're profitable.
If Bluesky or Threads become (net) unprofitable, they'll die. Mastodon is already unprofitable, so that can't kill it.
I think we could compete with #1 just by word of mouth.
For #2 some person or group needs to develop a Mastodon app (FOSS obviously) that has a "just do this part for me" option, probably automatically enabled.
#3 is on us. We have to do what we can to make Mastodon (and Lemmy) more open and accepting without falling pretty to the paradox of tolerance.
#4 is hard... Although I think if Mastodon follows or tries to replicate the "early" Facebook user experience where most or all of the content people got was from people they follow, that could be better. The only challenge is that algorithms tickle our anger/hate/disgust impulses to drive and maintain engagement. That's some very strong "lizard brain" stuff.
So... let's get going y'all! :)
There are some advantages to algorithms for discovery - it's certainly is more user friendly. It's just a shame they tend to enshitify or become toxic. Bluesky seem to offer an API of sorts to plug in feeds you create. Perhaps open algorithms are more accountable?
Absolutely agree with point 2, not just for Mastodon, but others like here on Lemmy or Misskey or whatever it may be.
The process of finding an instance can sometimes be annoying because you might find an instance that sounds alright, like I did for Mastodon, and then find that there's the problem of sign-ups not available. That, and signing up for the instance I got on then had a waiting period for account review and all that before I could do anything.
I assume, from what I've heard, all you gotta do for threads and bluesky is just sign up and start posting with less effort, which is what the majority of people want.
They have marketing budgets.
Does Bluesky? Have they been running marketing? Much of what I've seen/heard of it has been more a result of Twitter imploding and people bringing up alternatives than any concerted marketing pushes.
edited for clarity, realized I'd overlooked Threads mention
They probably have good discovery and trending post mechanisms. Mastodon makes it a point not to have one, which results in a wholly uninteresting feed for the average user. I'm only on mastodon, but I very rarely use it, because it mostly sucks unless you spend several, several hours trying to track down fun accounts to follow yourself.
That is my experience too. It's because there is no distinction between posts and comments, I think. It's about as interesting as my sms chats with friends would be to strangers.
I'll speak about my experience. Bluesky feels like an upgrade to Twitter. There are many algorithmic feeds to choose from, and it's easy to discover people to follow. Mastodon, on the other hand, is a straight downgrade from Bluesky because it is lacking in those features.
I imagine a lot of people leaving Twitter feel similarly. They don't care much about privacy or federation. Bluesky just works, and that's what matters to them.
What do you mean by privacy? Mastodon doesnt have privacy or encryption
I guess a lot of people feel like Mastodon is more private because it's smaller. Which is a kind of privacy, I guess, until it isn't.
Because the Mastodon community did the same thing we do every time there is a chance to get people away from corporations (e.g. Linux vs Windows).
People were looking for an alternative. The general consensus was it was hard to really grok federation. So, of course, The Community insisted on explaining federation and why it was good while basically only commenting on the instances that had closed applications. It was the equivalent of insisting someone who wanted to try Linux for gaming NEEDS to use arch and only needs to know twenty command line operations to get up and running.
So... everyone instead just went to Bluesky and Threads where sign-up links were provided rather than directory links and manifestos.
And... I am perfectly happy with that. Lemmy has a LOT of issues where so much of the community is talking about their ex-girlfriend (reddit) all the time and we basically get constant content and engagement farming that makes no fucking sense considering the userbase.
Whereas Mastodon actually IS a really good community that feels very different from twitter/bluesky/threads. It isn't for everyone but I very regularly have genuinely good conversations with people in the town hall/microblog format. Whereas... I am not sure if I have ever had even a meaningful conversation on lemmy (whereas I've probably had maybe ten on reddit over the years?).
So... everyone instead just went to Bluesky and Threads where sign-up links were provided rather than directory links and manifestos.
Wild! This was my exact thought as I was signing up for Mastadon. I spent like 15 minutes figuring out what Mastadon is, what server to join, what each server means. Then I did the thing like I did with Lemmy and created half a dozen accounts waiting to see which server gave me my "Account Created" email first.
I agree with you, people end up going the perceived “easy route” because of the amount of explaining and low level protocol exposure that they receive from someone who is trying to sell them on joining an ActivityPub network. And that’s just the people who are trying to encourage them to join, then there’s the people that straight up think “normal social media” people don’t belong on the fediverse because of one biased reason or another…
Several reasons:
Generally speaking, how is Mastodon any better than Bluesky? How is Lemmy any better than Reddit? If you can't answer that in a way the average person gives a fuck about, what's the argument for using them?
To many, federation is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist for them. In their mind, the early model of federation is like email, a problem that was "solved" years ago by having one corporate product that was much better than others (Gmail).
To add, on top of that, the fediverse is like if gmail could just randomly decide to stop receiving emails from outlook addresses and there's nothing any user can do about it except make another email for when they want to email outlook users.
I don't think fediverse proponents know just how catastrophically this terminates their entire pitch in the minds of 99% of internet users
if gmail could just randomly decide to stop receiving emails from outlook addresses and there’s nothing any user can do about it
This is the case right now.
There's good reasons GMail doesn't do that, but there's absolutely nothing technical preventing from doing that, and I can't think of anything that legally prevents them from doing that.
and those that do post don't really interact with others
I’ve found quite the opposite on Mastodon. I get WAY more interaction on there than I ever did on Twitter.
I do a radio show on Monday nights. Despite having more followers on Twitter I never really managed to attract many listeners. Dropped it for a few years and started up again a few months back, publicising solely through Mastodon. Engagement with it is three or four times what it was before.
It’s essentially a request show, and there have been a couple of weeks where I’ve not had to pick any songs to fill the time, all of it has been filled by listener requests.
That said, that’s only my experience, it may be different for others.
No ads. Lightweight app/website.
I needed to scroll way too much to see people mention marketing and advertising. It's a huge deal.
The power of good advertising is not to be underestimated. There is a good statistically proven reason why so much money flows into it. And it's not only traditional advertising but viral and "astroturfed" advertising.
There is a good statistically proven reason why so much money flows into it.
Too many smug people think, "advertising doesnt work on me! Hah! Only weak minded normies fall for it..."
Wrong.... Advertising works. And that's the reason a shit ton of money that goes into it.
You want to know the reason why i run adblockers in my browser AND DNS levels? Because i KNOW advertising works on me.... i KNOW i'm not smart enough to outsmart the army of engineers, and copywriters generating this stuff.
Source: i work in advertising lol
The "this would never happen to me" mindset really is cancer to logical thought and reasoning.
I somewhere read (maybe it was thinking fast and slow by Kahneman?) that even psychology students learning about certain behaviors would later anonymously claim they would never fall into these patterns. But plot twist: they are also only human, so of course they also could fall into these patterns.
Another example: People that think they would never fall for a scam. If it is the right scam they will fall even more easily for it than people that know that it could happen.
"Of course it can't be a scam. Scams are obvious and only idiots fall for them."
“Advertising doesn’t work on me!” I mutter smugly, before loading up the Apple keynote to see what my next phone will do.
Its easier to just sign up and find everyone immediately, than to go learn what are instances and which one should you choose to make an account on, and then go and learn how to find other people that are not on that instance, or how to check do they have a mastodon account at all, then go and learn how to XY.
The "go and learn" is something that people, most of them, just don't want to do. If you need to learn how to use something, this is the first indicator of a bad user experience. It should be obviously easy for a new person to get around.
Valid question, but Americans in particular are easily swayed by the fact that the corporate ownership is listed as a "Public Benefit Corporation." Bluesky is a PBC and for most people that's enough "proof" that they will "be for the public good."
In that it is set up to "benefit the public good" people just... buy into that, even if the company isn't actually benefitting the public good.
Look at how long it took for people to wise up that the Susan G. Komen foundation was spending most of its money on their CEOs and ads and very little on actually helping people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_G._Komen_for_the_Cure#Pinkwashing
For the general public, Open Source generally means "difficult to set up and use with bad user interface."
And yes, the whole self-hosting thing with numerous servers is confusing to people who have never had to step outside of the corporate-dominated internet.
All that is self-evident based on the original reddit exodus to here on Lemmy. The initial exodus lead to tons of people complaining about lack of features on Lemmy with very few people actually stepping up to contribute to the code-base to bring those features to light. They're just far too used to private company doing all that "for free" (*cough for all your private data cough) and struggle to understand how the different way it is set up means you don't get all the fancy features from the get-go.
So people saw an option with corporate sponsorship and money behind it, and they leap to that. Also I'm sure Bluesky is investing in advertising their product, which is competing with zero advertising dollars spend on the no-corporate fediverse.
I don't disagree with your points but I think they apply to pretty specific groups. I doubt that the average person knows or cares that Bluesky is a PBC. The reaction of the average person to 'open source' is probably, "I have no idea what that is and please for the love of god don't explain it to me."
The initial exodus lead to tons of people complaining about lack of features on Lemmy with very few people actually stepping up to contribute to the code-base to bring those features to light.
Dude.....I have zero clue how to use linux. Which I assume is easier than writting code. You think I'm going to write a program in C++ or whatever language?
Saying the users aren't developing the program is like saying the hospital patients aren't willing to be their own doctor.
Users will ALWAYS bring up issues, and if the developers want the platform to grow, they'll implement upgrades to fix those issues.
Otherwise, you just have a userbase that rejects your platform, goes somewhere else, and a small group on the platform wondering why it's not growing.
Which is basically the core of this post.
To be fair, people having ideas for features is a valuable contribution in its own right.
Entitlement to them, not so much. But feature suggestions have value even if many of them aren't practical and many more never get added.
There's a few technical and non technical reasons someone might be on Bluesky/AT instead of Activity Pub. Protocol specific there's:
) Account ownership (theoretically at least, migration is still in development). Though it's hidden behind domain based identification there's a cryptographic key that let's you migrate to another PDS even if yours is down or banned you.
) Performance. Hosting something like a PDS is lighter than an Activity Pub instance.
) User level configuration. Bluesky let's you set custom moderation lists and algorithms, something you can't on Activity Pub.
) Compatibility. Building something like a link aggregator on AT that is compatible with a microblogging platform like Bluesky is likely a lot easier then Activity Pub since AT is broken up into PDSs and Relays. (To be fair compatibility does work on Activity Pub, but it's got jank).
There's also some less technical reasons as well:
) Bluesky is a platform and you don't need to learn a protocol to use it. Yeah it's not that hard to learn how any of the big three protocols work, but it's also not that hard to change your car's oil or sew ripped cloths instead of replacing them - but how many people do those? I'd guess 80% of Lemmy is an IT guy between 20-45 so it can get a little echo chambery on how easy tech is. One if the reasons Threads makes up 99.5%+ of the fediverse.
) Defederatiation is becoming a mess. If some random Joe has a friend on Bluesky & Nostr (both bridged), a few on threads, and a few spread across different instances; yet he can't reach all but 1 or 2 of them from the instance he chose to join on joinmastodon it might be time to reconsider how things are done. Techy people might have no problem sifting through a long list of servers to find the right one, but somebody who's already on the fence is probably going to quit at that point.
) Bluesky has a more mainstream culture, while the fediverse has very specific thoughts and ideas. Had I said I was on Windows you all might have put a hit out on me 😆
Had I said I was on Windows you all might have put a hit out on me 😆
Sorry for that
Mastodon and the fediverse in general are weirdly user-unfriendly, and then some fucking programmer pops in to say,
"Oh! You can fix that! All you have to do is hop over to their github page and..."
Lol
If they can make the user experience good, we might get the basis for a new internet, but they'd have to build it first.
weirdly user-unfriendly
I thought that was a feature
My perspective as someone who is mainly active in the anime/gaming fandom and gamedev space:
Overall, I think the main problems on Mastodon's side are difficult onboarding and lack of actual community-building efforts. Also, the community just seems to be less welcoming for creators in general imo
Mastodon overwhelmed me. I hopped on the website and had no idea what I was looking at. I didn't understand federation. I basically had the option of what niche hobby to join on Mastadon and no indication that I would he able to access a broader forum, so I said "Well, this fucking sucks." and left.
Threads and BlueSky are likely as accessible as making an account and you're done.
I still don't understand those platforms. Didn't when Twitter launched and still don't now that there's several of them. Same thing for like Facebook or its predecessors. They're all more about the person than the message and I honestly quite frankly don't give a shit about random people on the internet.
Sometimes the identity of the messenger is important.
Twitter was super easy to set up with the API to periodically tweet the output of some automated script: a weather forecast, a public safety alert, an air quality alert, a traffic advisory, a sports score, a news headline, etc.
These are the types of messages that you'd want to subscribe to the actual identity, and maybe even be able to forward to others (aka retweeting) without compromising the identity verification inherent in the system.
Twitter was an important service, and that's why there are so many contenders trying to replace at least part of the experience.
I'm only on the fediverse but I miss algorithms. Recommended accounts (which to be fair exists on a corner of Mastodon), similar accounts to one you just followed, custom home feed, suggested posts, etc. Discoverability sucks on fedi and the lack of interest from devs for some sort of private FOSS implementation is disappointing.
Loops was like let's have a "For You" algo early this year but even that seems to be a dead idea.
Threads was because if you had an Instagram account it ported over.
Bluesky was the Twitter clone made by the old Twitter CEO.
Most people didn't have a problem with Twitter being a corporation, they had a problem with the new owner of the corporation making the experience terrible with his new changes.
A marketing budget. The Fediverse has none, and we're competing with the big boys.
for me, it was discoverability. Like, several guides said "use tags" but 4 out of 5 people DON"T. And more often than not, when you do search the tags, you see several posts that aren't what you wanted at all. Or worse, the tag you search doesn't have any posts newer than several months to a year. Basically it relied on an honor system where few people had honor.
Bsky is more twitter like and less confusing than mastodon.
Bsky is federated too.
Just bridge them all together. Threads and nostr too. Then everyone can use what they want.
edit: seems this already exists. https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/09/openvibe-combines-mastodon-bluesky-and-nostr-into-one-social-app/
I used mastodon for a year. It didn’t really work out for me. I just took so much effort to find content or build an audience.
I didn’t go to threads because it’s owned by Zuck. But Bluesky is FOSS add free and decentralised, so I tried it out, and honestly (I’ll probably get hate here for this) but the experience is far better than mastodon. There’s an algorithm, everything works. Mastodon had always been buggy for me. The UI is nice, the community is nice etc.
Plus thanks to bridgy, all of my bluesky posts are automatically displayed on mastodon and I can follow people from mastodon on bluesky.
decentralised
Is it really? I always heard that it's impossible to have another server independent from Bluesky's
Anyway, thank you for your comment!
Bluesky is FOSS
pretty sure it isn't.
Instance picking can be overwhelming. Making people just not even try it.
I do think a big challenge for the fediverse is how to ease that. And make it like e-mail where @whocares is not that important and it's easy to actually have a custom domain/instance.
And, of course, to achieve this instance admins should be really be responsible with defederations and bans. And only use it as last resort, probably only because of legal reasons. Not because "I don't like that instance admins main political thesis". Probably that kind of blocks are better to be left to the user.
I think the mobile app developers should run their own instances and default to that so it feels less confusing to new users.
that's not a bad idea at all. much more beginner friendly to download an app and register from there rather than having to do it externally and then coming back to the app to log in
https://vger.app/ exists for Voyager
I'm on both Mastodon and Bluesky but BS feels smoother and gives me more content after following some users and content than Mastodon ever did. I really want MD to work out and I'll go back there but I have neither the time nor the skills to develop or grow it myself.
We learned to hate "algorithm" but those can actually be good if creator wants to help us insted of manipulate us.
Without a friendly algorithm to help us, we have no chance in finding our way around all this information around us.
On Bluesky most of the algorithms are made by users, that’s another plus
Bluesky is a lot easier to use fresh out of the box. Even though their feature set is quite similar, Mastadon has a clunky and confusing UI, and still lacks a native iPad app-- instead they offer a poorly ported iPhone app.
That's led to more people using Bluesky, and it snowballs from there.
My personal opinion is that it was:
I know it's not the main point, but I wouldn't call Linux fractured. Linux has multiple choices, but they all work fine unless you're going into an experimental realm or uncommon distros that beginners shouldn't be getting near anyways.
Moved here and never looked back.
Networking effect
Mastodon required people to join a server which made out to people who are used to signing up to a single website for the past 20 years or such, seam too complex.
You also end up in a situation where social media managers have to reach engagement and impression targets and don't think which is best platform that will not be taken over Elon musk or Mark Zuckerberg style, but which will reach engagement targets the quickest.
Is it really that surprising that large companies with lots of money can advertise better than user run instances of open source software?
Initially I heard about mastodon as a Reddit alternative, it was not. I have never been a Twitter user. I did create a Twitter account at some point, I only ever used it to post images from when I was at occupy Wall Street, and then later to follow a couple accounts for updates (Sean Murray of Hello Games). When I opened my own business I created a Twitter account for that specifically and used it to send out coupon codes and stuff like that.
Once musk bought Twitter I deleted both of my accounts. I had totally forgotten about mastodon, so I got on the list for a Bluesky code. Around the time I got my Bluesky code I heard about Lemmy, and then heard about mastodon again. Had my Bluesky code not arrived when it did, I would have created a mastodon account for my business instead of Bluesky. Since I never use either it is a moot point for me.
I use both, but honestly, some mastodon users can't help but be outright patronising and hostile to newcomers.
The whole "we don't do that here" vibe clearly puts folk off. Weirdly, it isn't the long term users that do that, bug more recent converts.
Why do you think that is?
As depressing as it sounds, most Twitter users actually like Twitter. They're fully okay with all of its dystopian features (some even idolize pre-Musk Twitter). Mastodon is a break from Twitter in many ways, whereas bluesky is just another Twitter in their eyes (many of them probably dgaf about federation and ignore it).
Twitter and YouTube are the least toxic social media platforms I use. I know toxicity exists on both but it is not being served to me. My feed is what I want to see and only that.
On the other hand, something like Reddit or Lemmy needs a huge amount of curation to keep the feed even half decent.
because mastodon because dismissed twitter users concerns and thoughts the first exodus and bluesky implemented them in a way that's closer to twitter.
… what
There have been some complaints about Mastodon for years; both specific ("quote tweets") and vague (get rid of shitty, often bigoted replies for profiles with a lot of followers or with a marginalized identity).
Mastodon largely hasn't implemented them. Maybe Bluesky has. (I don't have a BS account.)
The fediverse has many micro blogging implementations outside of mastodon if you don't like their featureset (and they federate with each other, unlike bluesky). The only features I couldn't find are those that contributed to making Twitter the dystopian toxic space that it is.
How was your dentist appointment?
In addition to many of the fine points made in other comments I think it's silly to overlook the power of celebrity worship and weird-ass parasocial relationships with famous people.
There exists a large number of people who aren't really interested in discussing
<topic_x>
, they just want to know what<favourite celebrity whos life I have deluded myself into thinking is attainable by me>
thinks about the topic so that they can regurgitate it and feel like they're "the same".I'm sure if Chappell Roan or whatever "the kids" think is cool these days had jumped to Mastodon we'd be seeing something very different. TBH I'm mildly surprised that we didn't see more record labels standing up instances. It's always boggled me that people have just trusted the service desperately trying to be known as "X" as an authority on identity.
One reaon for why any company would rather just an x alternative rather start up a lemmy or mastodon instance of their own is externalize the responsibility. If someone else run the site then you can't be blamed when it goes down
Don't forget about moderation. It's all fun and games until someone starts posting hate speech, copyrighted material, porn (legal or otherwise) or worse...
It’s multiple factors but boils down to them being easier for non-techie people to access. It’s also a culture issue. Bluesky culture is more like Mastodon than not but it is more diverse and shifts younger. Lots of gatekeepers and harassers ruined it for would be mastodon users particularly Black and Brown folk that were harassed out of the space. One of the biggest minority ran instances was shut down due to overwhelming harassment. People also don’t want to be preached to nor want to be told how to use their own damn social account and be told they’re using it wrong. Most people legit just wanted Twitter without Musk.
If Brazilian fediverse is anything like English fediverse, its community was probably tied up in discussions who to deferderate from next and vegan cat food instead of promoting Mastodon.
The largest Brazilian Mastodon instance, Ursalzona proudly displays hammer and sickle in its favicon and a logo of its admin account.
its community was probably tied up in discussions who to deferderate from next
Seeing Ursalzona admin's pinned thread - you nailed it.
Threads has close ties with Instagram
(Threads uses opt-out ActivityPub.)
Edit: It's actually opt-in.
Edit: It’s actually opt-in.
... in certain areas:
Threads uses opt-out ActivityPub.
That's not true. I can neither opt my test account in nor out of ActivityPub. It's simply not available to Mastodon.
Because they'd heard of them.
The power of the fediverse is nothing next to the power of the normieverse and a couple of billion dollars in advertising money.
Too hairy.
I found it tiresomely political and strangely dogmatic way too much of the time. I didn’t get the impression that there was a wide cross-section of people on there.
Those people are just crazy.
There are a lot of people I follow who moved to Mastodon, that now appear to have moved to Bluesky (I'm seeing posts on there from people I know used to post on Mastodon).
I'm not sure why. If I move over it'll be because everybody else is there. At the moment I'm not using it much.
Maybe it is just avoiding big tech.
the later those outlook, iphone and windows11 using ppl find a good home in a more guarded environment. makes fediverse a place that can grow. it is not mature yet as we all can see when looking at defederation drama. in the end you will be able to choose between the fully federated network or a "super" app like weechat.
@dch82 mastodon can't go mainstream because its emphasis on decentralization is too prominent in its communication, which complicates its adoption
However, modern social networks can still stand out, provided that federation is natural and not explicitly mentioned—similar to how Threads operates currently
People dumb.
Fediverse sounds too much like metaverse so people assume it’s crypto bullshit
People love corporations
"Everyone"? I know exactly zero people that have admitted to having a Bluesky account, but I know plenty that have an Mastodon etc. one.
I think this is at most a very regional or specific user bubble thing, and official user numbers for these commercial services are never trustworthy.