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I've had a lot of people ask how BlueSky compares to Mastodon and the Fediverse. I've tried to make the answer as simple and easy to understand as possible:
BlueSky is designed to give corporations and wealthy people full control of the network. All of its traffic has to flow through expensive-to-run corporate relays.
The Fediverse is designed to give ordinary people control of the network. All of its traffic flows directly from one cheap-to-run server to another.
@FediTips Failing to mention that for the average (non-tech-savvy) user Bluesky is *significantly* more user-friendly than Mastodon and the Fediverse makes this not a very honest comparison.
Mastodon has real advantages and should in an ideal world be the main social network, but it is unable to reach that critical mass because Fedi-enthusiasts refuse to look critically at what could be improved (a lot).
Usability is simply not where it needs to be to reach a wider audience.
BlueSky is easier because it's centralised, like Twitter or Facebook. And it's going down exactly the same path to become just as awful as they are, because it is structurally the same: VC backers on a centralised for-profit corporate network.
Even if they "decentralised" with the AT protocol, it would still remain in corporate control.
If someone doesn't mind them becoming awful like this, then they might as well stay on Twitter or Facebook. What's the point of moving?
@FediTips That's just one of the reasons it's easier.
It's orders of magnitude more usable than both ex-twitter and FB and it's not run by (or overrun with) literal nazis. If you want twitter without the nazis and other shit, that's Bluesky... if you don't mind jumping through myriad technical hoops and a much smaller audience, there's Mastodon.
I'm still detecting zero willingness to look critically at Fedi and its UX issues here.
@FediTips If you want to be smug and look down on people who choose usability over the abstract virtues of open source, knock yourself out, but it's not going to help reach more people who are unconvinced by the Fediverse as it stands (many of whom in fact tried Mastodon during recent twitter exoduses and did not like it).
That failure is on Fedi, not the users.
@FediTips I tried really hard to convince more folks to give Mastodon a chance the past couple years, and none of them stayed.
@FediTips (not that there haven't been significant improvements, but there is a lot of work to be done before Mastodon and Fedi will be accessible to a mainstream audience)
@ninjadodo @FediTips I agree, although I would also argue it's better for Mastodon that the public not find it accessible in its current state. The sheer amount of traffic and new users BlueSky took on post Nov. 2024 would be daunting for well-established networks, nevermind one that's been public for less than a year. The *only* reason they survived that influx is because their minority-group users and those experienced in trust & safety beat the staff over their heads to implement robust safety features in the product and have a dedicated T&S dept. in the org.
Mastodon would not survive a similar influx. It lacks the necessary safety tooling (the protocol ITSELF is not secure), and the majority of instances lack both the knowledge and the governance to keep users safe on a major user-content network. So many on the fedi preach about the bad things that *could* happen to BlueSky without talking about the existential threats Mastodon *currently* faces.
"and it's not run by (or overrun with) literal nazis"
Because of the way Bluesky is structured, Musk could buy it tomorrow. There's nothing to stop Twitter happening all over again.
"If you want to be smug"
I'm not being smug, I am being deeply worried by what centralised corporate social networks have done to the world:
This is caused by centralised networks run for profit. It doesn't happen at first when it's building up, but it happens eventually.
@FediTips Yes, any private company could in theory be bought and change how it operates, but what *could* happen at some unknown point in the future is not what is happening right now, and this again does not address the real weaknesses of Fedi.
The fact is that for most people Bluesky TODAY is a better alternative than Mastodon. This is not because they are stupid, this is because for a non-tech-savvy user basic usability far FAR outweighs any potential advantages of open source independence.
@FediTips "You might have to move somewhere else in the future" is not much of an argument because that has been true of ALL sites and services for the entire history of the internet.
Also conveniently ignores that people far more frequently have to change Mastodon servers because their chosen server decided to shut down for whatever reason (drama, lack of funds, personal circumstances, etc) and the moving process is anything but convenient... and that's IF you even get there in time.