I’s heard news that BlueSky has been growing a lot as Xitter becomes worse and worse, but why do people seem to prefer BlueSky? This confuses me because BlueSky does not have any federalization technologies built into it, meaning it’s just another centralized platform, and thus vulnerable to the same things that make modern social media so horrible.
And so, in the hopes of having a better understanding, I’ve come here to ask what problems Mastodon has that keep people from migrating to it and what is BlueSky doing so right that it attracts so many people.
This question is directed to those who have used all three platforms, although others are free to put out their own thoughts.
(To be clear, I’ve never used Xitter, BlueSky or Mastodon. I’m asking specifically so that I don’t have to make an account on each to find out by myself.)
Edit:
Edit2: (changed the wording a bit on the last part of point 1 to make my point clearer.)
From reading the comments, here are what seems to be the main reasons:
- Federation is hard
The concept of federation seems to be harder to grasp than tech people expected. As one user pointed out, tech literacy is much less prevalent than tech folk might expect.
On Mastodon, you must pick an instance, for some weird “federation” tech reason, whatever that means; and thanks to that “federation” there are some post you cannot see (due to defederalization). To someone who barely understands what a server is, the complex network of federalization is to much to bare.
BlueSky, on the other hand, is simple: just go to this website, creating an account and Ta Da! Done! No need to understand anything else.
The federalized nature of Mastodon seems to be its biggest flaw.
The unfamiliar and more complex nature of Mastodon’s federalization technology seems to be its biggest obstacle towards achieving mass adoption.
- No Algorithm
Mastodon has no algorithm to surface relevant posts, it is just a chronological timeline. Although some prefer this, others don’t and would rather have an algorithm serving them good quality post instead of spending 10h+ curating a subscription feed.
- UI and UX
People say that Mastodon (and Lemmy) have HORRIBLE UX, which will surely drive many away from Mastodon. Also, some pointed out that BlueSky’s overall design more closely follows that of Twitter, so BlueSky quite literally looks more like pre-Musk Xitter.
The year is 2034 and 96% of the population is unemployed because they are all forced to “do their own research” on literally everything and there’s no time to work. We all must research every niche topic to fully understand it before using it or the other 4% calls us stupid and lazy.
No longer are we allowed to just buy a shower head, or bike or sign up for email without sources cited and proof we know everything about said thing.
Have kids? Do their research too, no chocolate milk unless I’ve proven why it’s good.
Elderly parents? Don’t let them touch that Roku remote. I need a research paper on all the options I explored.
Sorry for all the sarcasm. I fix my house, I work, I mow the lawn and shuttle children to sports, and my friend says check this bluesky thing out, 30 seconds and I’m signed up and have a friend and a discover tab and a search that works. Life’s chaotic and I don’t want to be defined as stupid because I can’t spend hours figuring something out in place of something I think is more important.
All this not directed at you specifically but I guess it hit a nerve.
There are reasons that they have spent thousands or tens of thousands of working hours to make uptake as easy as possible. Those reasons are not in your interests. It is such a small price to pay. It is a necessary feature of ANY distributed service. The irony of complaining about it from your niche little Lemmy instance.
Look at it this way. You still had to pick an instance!! You just picked an instance that cannot talk to any other instances. If you were not so (forgive me but I guess it’s the term we’re using for lack of a better one) stupid, you would have realized that you had just had a meaningful choice taken from you, and made for someone else’s benefit instead of yours.
Throughout our entire global culture, convenience is killing us. I happen to believe free and healthy public forums outside of capitalist exploitation is of vital importance. I think this is a place our governments have abdicated responsibility to their citizens, and the Fediverse is the next best thing to public infrastructure. It’s so worth it when everything you need to know can be expressed in a one page FAQ that fits on your phone’s screen.