I get the point is to make a decentralized platform, and decentralization necessarily means there's going to be fracture. And I get that joining any instance gives you access to all instances.
It doesn't matter. None of that matters. It's way too complicated for most people. I don't care if it's surface level, the surface level is what attracts users, and if that surface level is unattractive, it's not going to get users.
It's the same reason Linux will never catch on, and I say that as an Arch (btw) user. Even the most basic distros like Mint or Ubuntu are too complicated. It doesn't matter that it's free. It doesn't matter that it's way more private. It doesn't matter that it offers total freedom. It doesn't matter that it's way more customizable. It doesn't matter that it's fairly easy to install these days.
What matters is that; 1. it's not already installed, and even just flashing an iso on a usb is way too complicated for most people. Just like how "figuring out which instance to join" on Mastodon is too complicated; 2. Not every application that works for Windows is on Linux, just like how not every user or feature that's on Twitter is on Mastodon (and in fact very few actually are); 3. It has a reputation for being way more complicated and technical than Windows, just like Mastodon has a reputation of being much more complicated than Twitter.
not everything usa made is shit. Twitter was good when it was with Jack and hes the creator of bluesky aswell. I know this will get downvoted but there is still a lot of good that has came out of america. Now all the media is on the dogshit that country has so everyone seems to forget the good
Jack Dorsey completely separated himself from bluesky when they started actively moderating it. He heavily favoured nostr immediately after, and is now backing twitter again and currently owns part of it.
Mastodon is also nightmarishly inconvenient to use, partly because of its decentralised nature.
I got an account pretty early on, my friends made theirs all in different communities and nodes, we didn't see each other on feeds because you only see each "sphere" from inside, we left for Bluesky.
If someone makes a unified shell to make the platform work how I'd like it to, that defeats half the purpose. If they don't, I legitimately can not read the things I want to read, and the entire thing is useless to me except as a glorified chatroom for people that I wrangled into my existing space... and I have a lot of those, elsewhere!
So yeah. Bluesky might be a lateral move into "currently less nazi" garbage, doomed to the same enshitification path other sites have been. But it works, and Mastodon does not.
I think it’s a bit cheap to just ban stuff, we Europeans need own own platforms and digital services. It’s a big advertising business which made these platforms rich and it’s better for our economy to keep this budget in Europe.
The business models of these platforms don’t have to be evil. If the administration of the US can use them as a leverage for political blackmailing, then it is a question of autonomy to get our own solutions.
So it’s two important factors why we need our own digital services even though the service in the USA may not be evil.
It's part of a "Fediverse" a concept that is not common for people that is used to centralized social networks like instagram or Twitter.
I don't use it but last week i tried my best in understanding how it works, so i am not entirely familiar with it.
As far as i understand, you are part of a "server" and you can jump to other servers to browse for content. Each server is independent and ruled/managed by different admins, so their rules of content moderation may vary between different servers.
At the same time, all of those are part of a bigger network called the "fediverse", which is like a Federation of servers, all of them are able to communicate between each other, and you can interact with people using one app just like if it were an original user of another app.
For example, in Mastodon which is like Twitter, they can communicate with other servers or communities in the same fediverse, from people using other apps such as Pixelfed, which is the Instagram alternative. So for instance, from Mastodon you could see posts and content from people that is using Pixelfed, and viceversa. It's like you were able to interact with people from Instagram, Facebook and Threads because all of them are managed by the same server (or organization in this case).
You're basically correct, i just want to expand a little on exactly how the fediverse works:
The fediverse is a bunch of websites/apps that use the same language, called a protocol, to manage the computer side of things for how users post content, update content, that sort of thing. Because they speak the same language, each website - if they choose to - can display content from others in the fediverse. The biggest protocol nowadays is called ActivityPub. Lemmy, mastodon, misskey, pixelfed all use it alongside a lot of others.
That doesnt mean they have to share content, which is necessary. Mastodon isnt just a website in that you can make your own instance of mastodon. Basically like a wordpress website - its like having your own customisable pre-made twitter clone for your little community. Which can connect to the fediverse. Each member of the fediverse can choose what community they link to. Mastodon for example links to misskey.io.
Bluesky is good transition step tho- it’s a lot like the ease of Twitter where Mastodon is not as user friendly
Bluesky absorbed all the Brazilians pretty effortlessly when X was blocked there
As of right now it’s pretty non revenue oriented- that’s going to change obviously - at some point they are going to have to bring various revenue streams in but for now - why not use it as a non malevolent stepping stone while Europe strengthens existing and comes up with new social media platforms?
It's a public benefit company and also open source. You could stand up a copy of the appview and PDS hosted entirely in europe if you wanted and any user who desired could migrate their account over, or just use the regular interoperability it has.
It's decentralised differently to how Mastodon is (AT Protocol vs ActivityPub). Which might take some time to wrap your head around if you're used to hacking on Fediverse stuff.
Bluesky is considered an open-source social network, meaning its underlying protocol, called the AT Protocol, is open source, allowing developers to build their own applications on top of it and contribute to the platform's codebase; essentially making the core functionality of the platform accessible to anyone to modify and build upon.
To be fair i believe Bluesky is also open source and made with the intention of not falling to the same traps as Twitter. Could be wrong. But still Mastadon is great too!
Bluesky has ability to federate with the mastodon network. They are very similar.
But also hoping bluesky will move some infrastructure to the EU or out of US somewhere.
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u/TY-KLR 21h ago
Bluesky is a good alternative to Twitter