Uhmmm... Mastodon works on the ActivityPub protocol, just like Lemmy. So why not use that?
You can even find your Lemmy account on there, and Mastodon accounts on here.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Uhmmm... Mastodon works on the ActivityPub protocol, just like Lemmy. So why not use that?
You can even find your Lemmy account on there, and Mastodon accounts on here.
Surely nothing will go wrong with THIS corporate owned walled garden.
How any times do they have to learn the same lesson?
Technically it's an open protocol. Whether or not any other implementations will surface remains to be seen.
There is another alternative to twitter
Its pretty unknown, especially on lemmy, so i dont think many people heard of it, its on something called "the fediverse" and is called "mastodon"
I know a much better place. It is called mastodon.
Just pointing out the author mentions they used mastodon for a time too, their argument is that bluesky interface, content and moderation are better for them.
That mindset is the problem. A slightly better UX at the cost of freedom is a bad deal.
UX matters.
If open source software genuinely wants to be an option for normal people, they need to fix their shit.
That's fair! Although I fear big money will always come up with some way to make a "better" UX, either simply because they can afford more/better devs, and often by compromising privacy, accessibility, etc.
embrace extend extinguish has worked in the past and it can work again
It’s a little more than a slightly better UX. Dismissing the entire concept of the instance removes a fair amount of complexity and fragmentation from the equation. There are so many cheerful guides out there about how to select an instance and every single one of them loses 95% of normal people in the first paragraph.
Having a signup model that people understand helps. Concentrating everything in one schema creates a noticeable increase in density of relevant content. Having corporate money for real hosting and security counts. When you fediverse instance goes down to DDOS or implements crippling safeguards because they can’t keep up with the spam, you really feel how the whole thing is run on a shoestring.
I will give bluesky credit for their focus on moderation. Hopefully some of that design is cloned by the Mastodon folks sooner than later
I will give bluesky credit for their focus on moderation.
Watch that focus disappear once the enshittification phase starts.
Yeah, I'm not a fan of the microblog format, but I'm pretty sure everyone here is going to agree that Mastodon is the superior Twitter replacement.
Nope. Not at all. I very much prefer BlueSky as far as Twitter replacement goes.
yep, people that loved walled gardens like twitter will absolutely love bluesky
Unfortunately not. For me the main problem is discoverability. There's no recommendation algorithm except for boosts. I'm not suggesting Mastodon integrate some kind of machine learning or other advanced stuff, but number of likes from followed accounts and a threshold would be nice for a start. As it is, Mastodon is just bad for entertainment purposes. Maybe it works for other purposes, but for entertainment I'd rather have the algorithm-fuelled quote-tweet dunking on Twitter.
There's the explore tab in the mastodon app that shows you trending hashtags, and recommends people to follow based off who you already follow. There's trending accounts that just post about trending items too. Use them as your algorithm.
Leaving one privately run garden for another sure seems like a choice 🤔
It's built to be decentralized though, from what I read.
It's centralized. They allow federation using their own protocol.
But all you need to know is that it's a capitalist, for-profit undertaking.
His profile is sign-in blocked.
“Public square” indeed.
Mastodon is much better for that
Now ditch that for mastodon
The one drawback to Bluesky’s block feature is that a user’s block lists aren’t private. Through third party apps, you can find lists of everyone anyone’s blocked. That probably won’t bother most people, but it’s a potential issue for those who worry that public block lists could be used perniciously by persistent stalkers or harassers.
The only missing function is the ability to lock your account or go private as you can on Twitter, which would let you hide your account from non-followers while still posting to folks who already follow you.
But Bluesky has gotten considerable criticism at key points over the last year and a half for failures in handling anti-Black racism in particular. Rudy Fraser wrote extensively about some of these issues along with a deep dive into his goals and challenges as the creator of the now legendary Blacksky feed in a great post a year ago.
Every time someone recommends me Bluesky, I learn something else about it that makes me never want to make an account. Any one of these three quotes should be a dealbreaker on their own
Another idea: ditch Twitter and learn to play the ukulele instead
My experience with BlueSky has been that it is better than Twitter because it is smaller and doesn't cater to the far-right.
BUT...
It can become extremely toxic very fast because they implemented the same poorly executed features Twitter did that fucked things up. In fact, it's way worse than that...
The two features they copied from Twitter that hurt them the most are site-wide search and quote posts. Site-wide search enables people to "namesearch" or to monitor keywords for issues they want to fight about. Quote posts are a well understood "dunk mechanism", that largely encourages dogpiling.
As for being free of a central algorithm, that seems good, until you see that there are tons of community algorithms you can subscribe to instead. Now there are algorithms for things like "anti-Zionist posts" and "pro-Israel posts", which not only let people find their preferred echo-chamber, but also provide trolls access to exactly the groups of people they want to argue with or harass.
These algorithms can be built to detect certain hashtags and phrases, or they can just be big lists of accounts like a Twitter group. There's no telling when you might show up in one of these algorithms or why.
As a result, if you say anything less than agreeable about any issue, there's a chance you're going to hear from a bunch of accounts you've never met before, regardless of what side of an issue you are on, or how extreme your view actually is.
I don't recommend it. It's a pro-profit company that seeks to be a wholesale replacement for Twitter. AT Proto federation is a complete joke, it'll never expand if it doesn't have a flagship open source server. They'll give up on it just like Twitter did and just be another centralized, toxic, microblogging community.
The fucking lack of site wide search is why I hate these federated services. Such a glaringly missing feature.
Yeah it really makes Mastodon unusable as the "one big forum" that twitter was and bluesky is trying to be.
I’d rather have a smaller but somewhat predictable group of peers I grow to somewhat respect and trust than being confronted by thousands of random strangers that are there for mere “engagemen” but not for helping each other out or saying nice things.
Thanks, this was helpful! Sounds like I’ll pass on Bluesky!
Bluesky is also about as dead as tumblr
I barely see anyone interacting with anything, or anyone for that matter
I tried Threads and it was horrible. Honestly not using Mastodon that much. But maybe that format is just not my thing.
Yup, I've tried Twitter and hated it. I remember when Mastodon launched, and it was described as "federated Facebook" IIRC, and now people are claiming that it's more like "federated Twitter." I hate both Facebook and Twitter, so I use neither.
So honestly, I don't really care about Twitter/X vs BlueSky vs Mastodon, because I don't want to use any of them. Reddit/Lemmy is a much more interesting format to me TBH.
I really need local interest groups. For example a local skating community or local hardware selling group - that’s only Facebook today unfortunately.
Dang. Does meetup work? I know it's pretty decent for tech meetups, not so sure about the others.
Sort of. It’s definitely worse since Covid with the majority of “local” events being online either way. And where I live now it’s much quieter than where I used to live.
Dang. Covid really messed stuff up, I used to love Meetup before, but I haven't had as much time since (had a kid right after Covid started, so I've been spending more time at home).
How about, no