This was a great little article. Very fair summary of the situation.
After the demise of Twitter, I first tried Post.news — which had great branding but failed to get the everything-is-a-tweet model right (comments were 2nd class citizens to posts).
Then I moved to Mastodon, which I enjoy. Mastodon’s biggest issue is the enormous UX hurdle to pick an instance before even signing up, though. That and the lack of a unified view (mentioned in the article) will probably keep it niche. Also lack of quote-tweeting, a deliberate choice.
BlueSky is the first truly worthy successor. It’s better than Twitter in its prime, before it went algorithmic. It allows quote-tweeting but gives the quoted party control over the scenarios that Mastodon was trying to prevent by avoiding the feature entirely.
Every time there's a Bluesky or ATProto post I comment with how I think their killer feature is video.
Their smart use of domains makes it so that their equivalent of "channel" can be an actual website, that will offer you recommendations when you watch videos on it exactly like YT, except you control the algorithm.
Users will get much better choice and experience over the already excellent YouTube, but most importantly the creators will be able to express themselves however they wish. They will rent hosting from a provider, shows ads from an Adsense-like service, and actually own both their content _and_ their subscriber list.
I've been wanting to build it, but I'm always deterred by how ATProto is still tightly linked to Bluesky itself.
It's so user-friendly that you get banned for sharing any remotely controversial opinion. Just like the good old days of Twitter!
Twitter/X is actually a balanced discourse site now. CNN even admitted that the party affiliation of its users went from majority-left (65/31) to split down the middle, 48/47. https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1861445812175147353
Ergo if everyone who hates mars man proclaims that the alternative to mars man website is “the next big thing” and “exploding in popularity” loudly and often enough, then maybe it will actually become popular outside the mars man bad crowd.
You know it’s manufactured when news outlets are comparing App Store download rankings of X and BlueSky. The new app versus the one that’s been around for nearly 20 years and already present on most devices it ever will be.
Meanwhile in the real world nobody has heard of BlueSky or really cares that people they’ll never interact with no longer get banned for being bigots on X.
Change doesn’t happen all at once, right? Bluesky may still not have the mindshare — but two weeks ago they were 3-4 coin flips away from unseating Twitter, and now they only need one more. That they could become the leader in their category was unthinkable, and now it’s not.
> Twitter/X is actually a balanced discourse site now. CNN even admitted that the party affiliation of its users went from majority-left (65/31) to split down the middle, 48/47
To repeat a quote I have seen repeated in dozens of email signatures (below the pronouns, of course!)
"When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
That was true previously as well. The most substantial difference between Jack and Musk is that the former was better at maintaining a professional demeanor. His biases were no fewer, his tenure at Twitter was markedly more censorious, but he was better at presenting himself. This seems to be the main distinguishing feature of American liberalism as opposed to conservatism. The point about misinformation is another place this can be seen. There's a lot of misinformation from both mainstream political camps in the US, but liberal misinformation is more dressed-up whereas conservative misinformation is downright clownish--Alex Jones being a good example.
I see it more of a freedom from versus freedom to distinction. Under Elon’s Twitter you have the freedom to say anything (*almost anything — no tweeting about where his jet is lol). Under jack’s Twitter you have freedom from being bombarded with rape threats if you disagree with the wrong influencer.
Personally I prefer the freedom from regime but the nice part of the divide is everyone gets to choose for themselves. I’ve seen more of the people whose create content Im interested in (scientists, artists, authors etc) migrating to Bluesky but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years.
No, it really wasn't. Don't even try and pretend please. Musk was spreading deepfakes about Kamala for example without labeling them as such. Jack and Musk are not comparable.
Getting tired of these samey sort of 'look what a revolution Bluesky is' posts. Yes, it's doing well. A boom. A recent boom. But I also anecdotally am not seeing huge swathes of engagement or migration depending on niche. It was like that when the whole Mastodon exodus happened a few years ago also - both in the numerous excitement posts, and the niche-specific migration. Let's just see where it goes. The thoughtpieces are endless and lack any real insight or substantive data.
I switched to Bluesky yesterday due to the bots/zero engagement on X.
It's basically become yelling into the void. Started out in 2007 and it was great for finding people and getting interest in your projects, but now, I just get a bunch of spam bot follows and on an account with 3,600+ followers, only 30-40 views at most per post (w/ no engagement).
Same for me. 1,000 followers and barely any engagement. I swear it used to be different. My posts weren't any less dumb years ago, but I used to at least get a few replies and likes, even retweets.
Bluesky wont happen no matter how hard they push right now. Its not offering anything fundamentally different. It will pull from X but will stay niche.
2. User controls and choice, they decoupled {algo, app, data, moderation} and users decide which ones they use. Anyone can build any of these and offer them up without having to change social network. In short, they created a social media fabric with built in competition on the supplier side while removing the switching cost for users
It's clearly already "happening." Bluesky doesn't need to offer anything fundamentally different, just an experience that users consider better than the alternative. People aren't seeking novelty so much as an escape from the toxicity and algorithmically-driven vitriol of Twitter.
Every time I've opened the bluesky homepage it's been highly political. Not even in the sense of "here's a topic I feel strongly about". It's just "fuck conservatives" over and over. At the same time, even the most mild conservative opinions result in a ban. That's not a platform that one goes to for an escape from toxicity. It's a platform that one goes to so that they can burn strawmen with like-minded toxic people without worrying about getting blowback for it.
What are you talking about? Bluesky is the only platform that can beat X. It's brat. It's brat autumn. We're bringing back the social media of joy. We're not going back to X.
Look at all these popular celebrities endorsing Bluesky! C'mon, I'm proud to be part of White Dudes for Bluesky! X is filled with weirdos who can't get off without the couch.
After the demise of Twitter, I first tried Post.news — which had great branding but failed to get the everything-is-a-tweet model right (comments were 2nd class citizens to posts).
Then I moved to Mastodon, which I enjoy. Mastodon’s biggest issue is the enormous UX hurdle to pick an instance before even signing up, though. That and the lack of a unified view (mentioned in the article) will probably keep it niche. Also lack of quote-tweeting, a deliberate choice.
BlueSky is the first truly worthy successor. It’s better than Twitter in its prime, before it went algorithmic. It allows quote-tweeting but gives the quoted party control over the scenarios that Mastodon was trying to prevent by avoiding the feature entirely.
reply