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.
Bluesky is way more approachable than Mastodon. Most people don’t want to have to learn what an instance is.
People are less tech literate and considerably stupider than they were 20 year ago. It’s shocking.
Blame Apple I guess
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.
I had to switch Mastodon instances because of leftist infighting.
The federalized nature of Mastodon seems to be its biggest flaw.
Just to be devil’s advocate, perhaps the federated nature of Mastodon could be its greatest strength as well. Isn’t part of the point of all of this to avoid too much centralized control of social media?
Sure, Mastodon may never have as much mainstream appeal as BlueSky, but I use both. One of the reasons why I like Mastodon is precisely because I want to interact with more of a niche community on a federated platform. To interact with the masses on a platform that is more centralized, I use BlueSky.
perhaps the federated nature of Mastodon could be its greatest strength as well.
I should have been more clear. I meant “The federalized nature of Mastodon seems to be its biggest obstacle to it achieving mass adoption”.
The post was about why Mastodon isn’t receiving as many user as BlueSky, or in other words, why it isn’t achieving mass adoption. It was under this context that I chose to use the word “flaw”, as in, flaw towards reaching mass adoption.
One of the reasons why I like Mastodon is precisely because I want to interact with more of a niche community on a federated platform.
I agree. Mastodon being niche isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
In two word, Jack Dorsey
Howso?
Also he hasn’t been involved for a while.
His Notoriety is still associated with bluesky
That’s not why people are choosing Bluesky over Mastodon.
Just because BlueSky isn’t federated doesn’t mean it’s (totally) centralized. It uses the AT protocol which means user data lives in a separate place than the app itself. While the BlueSky app is centralized all the user data (your posts, likes, etc) live in a separate place and can be self-hosted. This means that if BlueSky went bust or something, users could easily just move to a new platform that someone would inevitably create and all of their data, likes, follows would all be there.
is that migration documented?
Sort of. There isn’t another platform to migrate to at the moment. But this link explains how to self-host your data (PDS) https://atproto.com/guides/self-hosting
And in general, because of the way the protocol works, you could easily build a new app and just use the data that Bluesky wrote. So another platform wouldn’t even need users to “migrate”, since it’s “being your own data”
Why aren’t there 2nd party apps then if I can easily build a new app? I’d much prefer to use one that doesn’t poll as often.
Maybe you can be the one to build it!
My guess is that nothing yet exists because A) the official app is generally pretty good and B) Bluesky is pretty newly popular so the demand wasn’t there yet
why bother replying if you don’t know?
You have to pick a Mastodon server, before you know anything about anything. The acquisition funnel probably drops 90% of the people checking it out right there.
That definitely makes a difference, you can choose which but by default it already selects one so some people won’t even change it for convenience, however, that’s not a thing on Mastodon so… Also, a lot of those are mobile users and BlueSky has a lot more Twitter-like familiar UI than Mastodon apps (maybe I’m wrong and if so, point me to which one because there are so many… there goes another issue and convenience out of the window for people who just don’t care about searching and wants something to be done quick - so basically most of Twitter users that still didn’t leave it or went to BlueSky)
Felt the same about Lemmy when I signed up.
The only reason I actually wound up signing up on Lemmy is that there is one “main” instance by appearance, and it lets you participate in others(?). (Lemmy.world)
You don’t need to know any of the more esoteric stuff to get going.
Is Mastadon different?
I don’t know, I use BSKY.
Hint: https://mastodon.social/
I already have BSKY and am not currently interested in picking up yet another account for something but thank you
Lol, fair enough.
Just pick an open one, that’s the easiest choice. No essays, no worrying about being denied, easy.
You’ve stated this at least twice in this thread. People aren’t like that, just in general. Heck, I understood it and still had trouble picking a server for Lemmy and mastadon.
Do I want a single topic or domain to define me? Will a small server have popular posts? Will it have popular people? I can’t find this popular account because I’m typing in username instead of user+domain.
I created and deleted at least 5 before I gave up and just picked one. Is that what most people would do?
I don’t think you’re wrong, but I think you are not putting yourself in the shoes of most users who want to follow a celebrity or a train station or space agency and can’t even find their account.
I’m sorry I wasn’t entirely clear, BIG server, with open sign-ups. The complaints about finding people aren’t really valid when we have big servers like this one or mastodon.social. Such servers have the best reach and the easiest onboarding. Pick those.
There are at least three viable commercial microblogging sites right now. So you already have all these problems, without even considering the Fediverse. The Fediverse is the SOLUTION to these problems, not the cause.
You have to pick a microblogging service. What’s the difference? Truth Social is just a mastodon instance, but it’s commercial and it has marketing. That’s all that’s “missing” from any other fediverse instance, and thank fucking god.
This, when I decided to join Mastodon I was prompted to choose a server and had to research which one should join and understand how it works.
It is called UX friction and is well studied in sign up and checkout processes, the more steps the user has to perform the more likely it abandons it.
Just pick one, you’re thinking too hard. I just picked one that’s open because I didn’t want to write an essay about myself to prove my worth and get someone to accept me, because I know that there isn’t any reason why anyone would accept me over someone else (I’m a nobody). I hate the idea of someone else having to review my worth before being allowed to sign up, what a disgusting concept. “Oh it’s to stop spam 🤓” All the other sites have been dealing with Spam good enough without asking me to prove my worth to them, maybe the Fediverse should take some pointers from the big boys at Big tech, they seem to be doing better than you are when it comes to this.
Eww no, I definitely don’t want them to take any pointers from big tech. Their anti-spam methods are way too restrictive and invasive to your privacy. I don’t want to give my phone number to websites just to sign up. And I cannot even view Youtube videos or Instagram posts because they are blocking the IPv6 address of my 6in4 tunnel which I need because my ISP doesn’t have IPv6 yet. I have to sign in to “confirm you are not a bot”.
Your example with YouTube is not an anti-spam measure, it’s them trying to restrict and create exclusivity with their content, they’re just lying and calling it anti-spam. I think it’s better to have some annoying automated spam defense like Reddit and the gang does than it is to be judged on my worth and denied because I’m not interesting enough or meet some dumb criteria to join the exclusive clubs Lemmys are slowly becoming fuck that.
How is picking a Mastodon server different from signing up for email, finding a discord server, signing up to follow channels on youtube, and so on. Somehow people have no problems figuring those things out, but when it comes to Mastodon this is constantly brought up like some insurmountable challenge.
Email has taken 25 years to get people that comfortable with it, and most folks either go with their ISP email, or one of 3 or 4 providers. Discord, you’re already in the tech savvy population.
Yet, the fact remains that people did get comfortable with email, and even the least tech illiterate people are able to use it.
Having to make an informed decision is a barrier to entry. it took me a while because I wanted to make sure I didn’t join (and waste time/effort) something I didn’t align with.
You don’t have to make an informed decision. Signing up for an instance isn’t a blood pact. If you find the instance you singed up for isn’t to your liking, You can easily migrate your account to another. Meanwhile, if you’re worried about something you don’t align with, then you don’t even get that choice with a centralized platform like Bluesky. For example, I don’t align with any of this shit https://toad.social/@davetroy/113476788536250587
You don’t have to make an informed decision.
Correct, but you are still presented with a decision that adds friction to the onboarding experience. I was aware of how Mastodon works and that I could migrate and it took me a while to create an account because I didn’t want to “waste my time”. I can’t imagine a regular user being prompted to “select an instance”, decide to go with the first one they see, and registration is either closed or invite only. That’s a huge barrier to entry compared to being forced into a single login that is always open.
Meanwhile, if you’re worried about something you don’t align with, then you don’t even get that choice with a centralized platform like Bluesky. For example, I don’t align with any of this shit https://toad.social/@davetroy/113476788536250587
100000% agree with you. I would never create a bluesky account because of that. Unfortunately people aren’t as informed and most really just don’t care.
What I’m saying is that the amount of friction this adds is completely blown out of proportion. It’s just not that hard, and people acting like it’s a huge barrier are not being serious. If this was the case email would’ve never taken off. The fact that we’re at the point where it’s hard to imagine a regular user going outside a walled corporate garden is really the problem here.
Unfortunately people aren’t as informed and most really just don’t care.
The flip side is that we shouldn’t care too much either. Fediverse already has millions of users, and it can just keep growing organically at its own pace.
☝️ This. It’s why I put off signing up for Mastodon for a long time, even though I am a big supporter of the Fediverse.
I’m on both Mastodon and Bluesky. To me, Mastodon’s biggest problem is its refusal to have an algorithm to surface popular content. Yes there are problems with algorithms, but I don’t have the time or inclination to read every post in chronological order. A good algorithm would show me popular posts without manipulating me for profit.
Edt: a few people have misunderstood me. I’m not proposing “Mastodon shows me stuff from people I don’t follow,” I’m suggesting “Mastodon shows me stuff only from people I follow, but it shows me the popular stuff first.”
This is a great commentary to me. I think it shows just how much of an appetite we currently have for a curated space. It’s almost like Mastodon is a service that’s about 15 years too late.
I remember going around to older forums and sites looking for specific content when I wanted it, and I wasn’t always guaranteed to find something I liked, but I would often see something interesting.
Now, though, I really want anywhere I go to knock me off my feet with good content because that’s what I’m conditioned to. Isn’t that what makes me an addict, though? I’m wondering if that chance of dissatisfaction isn’t a virtue to ensure no one platform takes control of all my attention.
Problem with algorithms showing popular content is that once you have them, you’ll have people trying to use them to make money. And by extension people trying to manipulate you for profit. Doesn’t have to be the platform itself doing it for it to be harmful.
Of course, but good luck getting those 5% of users that actually produce nearly 100% of the content to move over if their business model cannot work. And once those move, you know where all the people following them move.
I don’t really think mastodon needs those 5% to produce content to entertain and advertise a userbase of 95% lurkers. For me it’s definitely a bonus that they’re not there - I don’t need influencer-shit in my feed.
If that kind of content creator and passive user goes to Bluesky that’s fine. If they went to mastodon we’d just see calls for an algorithm, which would be directly against what I want in the platform.
Yeah being manipulated by algorithm is a problem. The best solution I can think of is Mastodon adding the ability to choose your algorithm. Not just a list of approved ones since the admins could manipulate that list, but the ability to actually upload some code so you can either write your own algorithm or choose one written by someone you trust.
That comes with a lot of problems like potentially overworking the server so I don’t know if it’s actually a viable solution but it would be nice.
As a layman, I promise you “write your own algorithmic code” is not a feature that would compel me to sign up for a service
I was thinking along the lines of being given a list of popular algorithms, but if you find an algorithm you like on another instance you can copy it over to your instance. So it is not necessary to write code and nearly nobody would do it, they would just use ones that other people created.
But I realize this is an extremely difficult request so I’m not really serious when I propose it.
I think it would be an awesome feature but like you said, just not something that is going to sway a typical social media user to give it a shot. But I can see it being a really cool way for advanced users to really customize their experience.
Oh yeah this has little to do with the original question about why bsky is more popular. This suggestion of “let people write their own algorithms” is for the devs who think algorithms are harmful. They aren’t harmful if you give users the power to choose their own algorithm. Techie people can write the algorithms and non-techie people can choose them. Chances are a few algorithms would eventually become the most popular and very few would be written after that, but the point is you let the users decide instead of the Mastodon devs having to write the algorithms.
And now I realize bsky actually has something like this: Custom Feeds. If I understand correctly, they get around the “running untrusted code” issue by not running the code on bsky servers. Instead whoever wrote the custom feed gets the data from bsky, runs the algorithm on a separate server, then returns the custom feed. Pretty clever. https://docs.bsky.app/docs/starter-templates/custom-feeds
I’m inclined to agree that’s a problem. Everyone’s first encounter with a social media content recommendation algorithm was one designed to manipulate them into clicking ads, so it caused some backlash. Recommendation algorithms can be tuned to show things people care about and want to engage with.
Exactly, a lot of algorithms on for-profit sites are manipulative trash but refusing to have any algorithm at all is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The lack of an algorithm is a solution. Social media tends to be too addictive to the point it can be harmful to humans, so Mastodon was intentionally designed to be less addictive.
I didn’t say refusing to have an algorithm was a bad thing, I just said it’s one reason Bluesky is more popular.
Algorithms makes me less addictive because it always suggest the same type of boring content
Oh, that’s interesting. Lucky you, I guess. The algorithms have been tuned to be as engaging as possible, and that seems to be working for most people. Obviously, it’s impossible to make it work for literally everyone, and you seem to be one of the few who can escape the algorithm.
Exactly I had difficulty finding content and any “guide” or anything I seemed to find was too confusing or not practical for me. I don’t use Twitter, blue sky, or mastadon regularly but when I checked them all out, blue sky was the best in all round; “Ease of use” and “easy to find content”
To me, Mastodon’s biggest problem is its refusal to have an algorithm to surface popular content.
Isn’t Explore - Posts on the desktop web client exactly what you’re looking for? It was always there and it’s where I spend most of my Mastodon time.
It looks like that’s popular posts by anyone, not just by people I follow. So it’s a start, but different people want to see different things so having a single firehose like Explore doesn’t really meet the need. For me, I want to see popular stuff by people or hashtags I follow. Other people might want to see other things.
Yes, that’s true. I am under the impression that “the algorithm” on the popular platforms mixes in posts from people you don’t follow. The only one I was somewhat familiar with was the Twitter one from when I was there.
That sounds more like a feature than a bug. I remember when Twitter was actually useful. You could sort by “new” as the default and your feed only included stuff from people you followed. And then it went to complete shit with the sort defaulting to “fuck your preferences”, sponsored content and your feed being littered with click bait, paid content and all the other bits of enshitification. And that is all built on the algorithmic selection of content.
I didn’t say it was a bad thing, I just said it’s one reason Bsky is more popular. People are busy and want algorithms.
thats the entire point of mastodon.
literally why it was built. Edit :
It’s not supposed to be a place you go to get served content. You pick who you follow, and that’s your feed.
The problem has been lack of adoption by popular news and culture . So you go there, and you cannot easily find high volume content provided like the bbc, nfl, Real Madrid, Activision, etc etc
I think people are misunderstanding what I mean by algorithm. An algorithm could show you stuff from people you don’t follow (yuck), but it could also show you popular stuff only from people you follow. That used to be how Facebook did it.
We get that it is the design philosophy for Mastodon to not have an algorithm serving content, but it appears to be a non-starter for a lot of users of Twitter like services.
In theory, a third party could write that algorithm and implement it in some form. Truth Social functions like that, but without federating to the rest of Mastodon.
I think using hashtags with filters serve the same purpose
But it still won’t put my friend’s popular posts at the top, right? I don’t want to scroll past 20 pictures of people’s dinner and then find out one of my friends got engaged, I want the “I got engaged” post at the top because it’s probably getting the most interaction.
There’s a trending posts list which helps fill this want for me.
Because not everyone has the same opinion.
It doesn’t mean they are wrong, it just means they like different things than you.
Of course I have to ELI5 in .ml
Because in Bluesky, you open the app, create an account, and you’re good to go.
Federation is way too complex of an idea for the average person. Picking a server and then understanding instances is much too complicated.
The average person understands email pretty well. Mastodon doesn’t require much more understanding than that, but could probably use some UX and messaging work.
No I’m sorry this is not correct. Most people don’t know how email works. They don’t understand federation, how servers work, or have the confidence or patience to learn it. They want to click an app and get content.
You are on an open source self hosted federated media platform exclusively inhabited by tech super users and developers. We are very much in an echo chamber here. I leave you this study that I keep posting here when Lemmy users lament over the lack of uptake from the general public:
I don’t think many people have read RFC 5322 (I haven’t), but most non-technical people I know understand these things about email:
- There are different service providers, and people can email each other no matter which provider they use
- There are different email apps
- Some apps are tied to specific service providers and others are not
I do lament the overall level of tech literacy.
Holy hell, 95% of people can’t figure out “what percentage of the emails sent by John Smith last month were about sustainability.” That is absolutely wild to me, and I already thought my perception was skewed the other direction due to working with largely disadvantaged people. That’s an eye opener for sure, thanks for sharing
The average person understands email pretty well.
No, they really don’t.
Do they though? To most of my peers email=gmail
I do agree that it’s a good way to explain federation, anybody willing to be openminded will get the concept very quickly (I mean the importance of federation, like for email, not simply the fact that it’s a thing / old tech but whatever who cares).
But will many be exposed to those posts or articles explaining the fediverse while staying inside of the walled gardens? I hope so, personally I’m not going there anymore myself :)
I was going to reply with this. This is exactly one of the problems. I didn’t have a Twitter, but I wanted to join mastadon. I had to find a way to access it, and an instance to sign up on. In theory it’s good but for a new user it can be difficult to sign up.
Then ofc the difficulty of finding content, there is content, but part of the no frills meant most of the stuff I saw wasn’t in English (I am a mon-english speaker) and it was tricky to figure out how to juat get English content let alone content I was interested in.
I’m reasonably tech savvy. All my personal computers run Linux, I have a 2-node proxmox homelab with 10+ containers and virtual machines running self hosted services. I can hack other people’s code together from web searches to sometimes make things work.
I had to do a few web searches to figure out how to sign up and get started on Mastodon. If it was a bit of a challenge for me with my listed tech skills, it’s insurmountable to the average user in the general public.
Bluesky is more like Twitter, and Twitter users prefer Twitter to Mastodon
Mastodon just sucks as a user experience. Your average Joe doesn’t give a fuck about federation, yet it’s the whole Fediverse crap that harms the UX.
I made the mistake of signing up to a smaller Mastodon instance. Place was virtually empty aside from the lead admin (bit of a pretentious asshole) and a few other guys, and if you decide to browse the All Instances view, you’re flooded with posts from hentai reposting bots. And when I saw the #loli hashtag in one of those posts I immediately noped out.
Threads is still in a really bad state well over a year later. Meta still haven’t implemented hashtags and trending topics (even Mastodon has these), and my feed is full of thirst traps.
Bluesky has it all, and was created by Twitter’s original founders.
Most of people choose what marketing makes them to choose.
All that’s missing is the garage myth behind the creation of BlueSky, without forgetting how its creator is a genius, and these people would be willing to pay for access!
Centralized or decentralized platforms, they don’t care lol
Well yeah, that‘s just how people work. Mastodon is unfortunately also not really a catchy name. Combined with the seemingly complicated system behind it, it probably never had a chance to begin with.
Bluesky is more similar to Twitter and has what most people were used to, like an algorithm, quote tweets, etc I found it extremely boring, but tbh it’s a more polished experience. One of my biggest annoyances with Mastodon is how threads and replies look weird. Sometimes I see the reply to a post before I see the post, especially in the “lists” view. Also not having an algorithm is both good and bad. It’s great because it’s organic, but it also means many posts get buried and it’s dependent on the time. As someone not living in the US and Europe, it’s tricky because sometimes you’ll post something when most people are asleep and no one will see it. I ultimately love Mastodon more because of the openness and the federation. But most people will find Bluesky more approachable
Because federation is confusing to the general populace
I will confirm my confusion
Personal answer: I draw art for a stupidly niche internet community. I’m a less popular artist so I go wear the community already is. I found one other artist on Mastodon and several on Bluesky.
