The Bluesky Bubble: This is a relapse, not a fix

publishing != talking

Err, turning "shouldn't be talking to each other this much" to "shouldn't be talking to each other" is quite the leap. The author is clearly referring to the minute-by-minute stimulation that a microblogging platform provides, not making the case that people should be cutting off all communication with each other.

And the starter packs who make it easy and quick to straight up build a follow base of curated content uniquely. That stuff only makes Twitter less relevant in an instant.

Custom feeds and starter packs seem to be promoted much more on Bluesky than lists were on Twitter, but how different are the actual capabilities from Twitter lists? I never looked at my algorithmic feed. Instead I make a "list" of accounts I followed and pinned that list to my home view. That way I only got exactly their posts in chronological order (with no ads). I saw that recommended by some HN user long ago, but I don't remember who.

I have fully switched to Bluesky at this point anyway, but the list approach worked fine for me on Twitter long after most users were complaining about the feed algo.

It's not that interesting, it's essentially just tweaking some knobs here and there. The problems it causes are far worse though, it just intensifies echo chambers, and self-selected filter bubbles, and ultimately ignorance and polarization.

Elon buying Twitter and ruining the platform with spam, lower quality posts being promoted, and many of my favorite creators leaving. It cured my Twitter addiction. So I appreciate Elon for that.

Back when I was younger and addicted to Reddit I remember unfollowing all my subreddits and hacking together a little script that hid the follow button. That friction made Reddit a lot less desirable.

I’ll no doubt eventually try out Bluesky, but I don’t think it could ever capture Twitter’s magic pre-Elon.

LinkedIn has a lot of garbage

Is it a forum split, or is it Digg->Reddit or MySpace->Facebook?

Have fascists ever taken over America before? We live in unprecedented times.

I feel like Facebook was often considered a MySpace clone in its early days, despite certain differences, and I certainly think it took its place.

I can't really understand why people use Twitter at all, since it's inception. It's never felt like a compelling platform and everyone I know has an account, like myself, but made it years ago for some reason and never used it.

reddit used to be the smaller, less popular version of digg :)

Instagram copied Snapchat Stories, which I think is close to what you are talking about...

Reddit for Digg, Facebook for MySpace to some extent (they were pretty similar in the early days), arguably MySpace for Friendster. Stretching it a bit, Tumblr for Livejournal; they’re weren’t _that_ similar, but then nor are Twitter and Bluesky, under the surface.

As a GenXer, I think it's hilarious.

I think the real problem on Twitter is the massive amount of spam that now exists. It's much worse than it was a couple of years ago. If all it consists of is bots and hucksters that pay to appear at the top of viral posts, it will cease to be a useful "pulse". That being said, this might just be the end of there being a single, central Twitter-like platform. There are already right-wing clones like Gab and Truth Social, it could be that more and more niche platforms pop up.

It used to, now it's got a load of ads and heavy prioritization of accounts that pay money to use it. It's also locked down on technologies like the API that used to make it interesting.

All social networking sites seem inevitable till they fail, remember digg?

Bluesky and threads are building interesting sets of communities, and with the number of active users they have now, it's likely that they'll stay there.

There are 15k+ starter packs on the directory now https://blueskydirectory.com/starter-packs and just a quick scroll through them shows the diversity of groups using the platform.

Bluesky appears (for now at least) more open to API driven interaction and doesn't default to an algorithmic view, avoiding some of the more annoying things on twitter.

Now as they grow there will be inevitable problems with scammers/spammers and the rest but all popular sites that allow user generated content have to deal with that eventually.

> For all its flaws, it's the only service that reflects society's pulse in real-time.

Is there such thing as accurately "reflecting society's pulse" within individual posts? Sure, maybe you can pull big data to understand public sentiment on certain topics or events. But the platform's goal is to present users with content they are most likely to engage with, so that they spend as much time on the platform as possible (and therefore view as many ads as possible). That content does not reflect society—it's often targeted ragebait. When users are goaded en masse by ragebait and engagement farming, some percentage are going to develop a distorted view of public sentiment, and their own engagement will further the issue.

The fact is that content discovery algorithms and moderation largely shape the tone and personality of a platform, both for a viewer and for a contributor (who is psychologically inclined to want to fit in).

Twitter isn't going to collapse and die overnight, but this could be the start of a 5-year trend where the "utility" of Twitter over other platforms gradually shrinks as reputable brands and public figures diversify their presence.

> For all its flaws, it's the only service that reflects society's pulse in real-time.

Assume it’s true for a min, why does a society need a website reflect its pulse? It is useful for company and govt to harvest the data, but I failed to see any meanful way common individuals will benefit much from it.