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Comment by derbOac | Hacker News Reader

I much prefer Bluesky to X but have had a hunch this was coming due to everything I've read about the practicality of running a Bluesky protocol service.

I still think there's room for something better technically. Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos but I've never quite gotten used to the server dependency experience.

Nostr appeals to me technically but every time I'm on it seems swamped completely by discussion of cryptocurrency.

I guess to me it feels like one of these catch 22 (necessary but not sufficient?) problems where you have to have the right technical base for a platform, which seems doable, but even then you have to have the right userbase also.

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It always comes back to the userbase. I don't know how many times technologists need to learn the lesson that normal people simply don't care about ideological technical principles like decentralization and often actually prefer the benefits of centralized systems like ease of use and typically stronger moderation. And when it comes to social media, businesses are naturally going to end up prioritizing the desires of the majority of their userbase.

Correction: businesses are naturally going to end up prioritizing the desires of the majority of their customers

And for social media that isn't their userbase.

That remains to be seen. Typically, the userbase is the product for a social media company, not their customers. Which means without a sizable enough userbase, there is nothing to actually sell to their customers. Bluesky has claimed to be different, but they are very much still in the early phase of trying to attract enough users so they need to cater to those users' priorities and decentralization simply isn't a priority that will attract many users.

Businesses are naturally going to end up prioritizing the desires of the majority of their customers and for “free”, ad-supported[0] social media that isn’t their userbase.

I’d like to see Bluesky’s long-term business plan and what they will do when someone inevitably wants return on investment.

[0] Yes, this describes all of current social media, but it doesn’t have to be this way. This business model should not be legal: as long as there is one “free” social media platform, that is the platform that is going to be used, simply because even $1 is infinitely more than $0 and no one can compete with free.

common people arent really using twitter or bluesky that much anyways. its just the crazies that are on there.

Always was.

It's why I found it so dismaying when we went through years of apparently serious newspapers reporting on every twitter-storm as if it was important. Yes, it was a good if unreliable source of breaking news, but the general noise of people fighting back and forwards about whatever it was that week ... was just noise, among a relatively small group of motivated crazies. Using it as a societal barometer just results in skewed coverage and an emphasis on American social issues that aren't necessarily as relevant everywhere else.

yep thats why these platforms are so toxic. bunch of lunatics locked in an asylum together.

It's shockingly common for people to cite Twitter and Bluesky posts as evidence of what the average American of political party X or Y believes. I do not understand how they came to be so deluded.

Usually those people are literally quoting representatives of those parties. They are, wait for it, representative of their respective parties.

I don't need to go find loonies. I can get on Twitter or Truth Social and get it from the horse's mouth.

> It always comes back to the userbase. I don't know how many times technologists need to learn the lesson that normal people simply don't care about ideological technical principles like decentralization and often actually prefer the benefits of centralized systems like ease of use and typically stronger moderation.

The choice need not be limited to the familiar corporate hellscape vs decentralized usability nightmare dichotomy. Middle grounds can exist if we want them to.

I've seen a lot of general support for the criticisms and concepts described in this article:

https://www.noemamag.com/the-last-days-of-social-media/

Anyone who builds what they describe there can expect it to take off faster than ever.

Oh hah, I guess my blog post came a month after this one. Near-identical subject matter.

[0] https://abner.page/post/exit-the-feed/

I think more important than usability is the lack of moderation on some websites

> Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos

I'm not sure that's true. It's important to note that these bans are from the Bluesky App View (one component of the infra), and that these users can continue to post under their identity (if they own it, which they can), and users on App Views that haven't banned these users could continue to follow them.

None of that works with Mastodon. An admin bans you from the instance, and you can no longer post, use your identity, interact on the platform, etc. You have to start from scratch.

In short, Mastodon reduces the blast radius, but the "blast" is the same as on any private platform. Bluesky/AT Proto changes the impact to a different, strictly lesser type.

That is true, but due to the smaller size and larger number of instances, it's easier to find a place where you won't get randomly banned without an admin taking the time to talk to you about what's wrong. My instance has about 1K active people on it and I've always been able to have a dialogue with the moderators and sysop. When things have gone wrong I had the opportunity to correct them.

I think there's a great value to the "small community" ethos that the fediverse supports much better than bluesky.

But this is completely not decentralized at the user level (especially IIUC mastodon users cannot export/import their data)

Bluesky is trying to build something as decentralized as email where still few providers dominate the market and most use few common ip/domain blacklists.

Yet it is one of the most decentralized protocols on the internet.

I a not saying Bluesky is a masterpiece but I think it is naive to hold it to a higher standard than email as a protocol.

If it fails due to little adoption then it is a fail, if it succeed there is a possibility of it becoming a good decentralized protocol

I'm not sure I can follow your logic of having smaller communities not being decentralized "at user level" whatever you mean by that. And you hyperfocus on Mastodon - which granted is correct as we're talking about mass adoption and where average users might go - but it is not the only project in the fediverse which is one of the main advantages over BlueSky. (And Mastodon does offer account move between instances, despite indeed missing porting over the existing posts)

> I'm not sure I can follow your logic of having smaller communities not being decentralized "at user level" whatever you mean by that.

I am making a parallel to how email works. With my own domain I can configure my DNS to use various different email providers and move however I like.

This is both decentralized and federated.

I can also use someone else's domain like gmail.com but then I lose portability for ease of use.

This is federated but not centralized.

Or I can host my own email server on my own domain and deal with spam fileters, bots, etc. directly

This is decentralized but less federated.

Mastodon is federated between instances but each instance is entirely centralized. Even account portability requires admin consent IIRC.

Bluesky is trying to create a space where users can own their own data like you can own your email AND aiming for widespread adoption.

I am not particularly focused on Mastodon, it is just the only part of the fediverse with a modicum of adoption.

Well, I'm writing software[1] that enables the users to own their own data and still participate in the fediverse. I was trying to convey to you that just because it's not popular it does not mean it's not possible.

[1] See my bio about GoActivityPub.

It would be strictly lesser if there were a significant free choice of App Views. BlackSky doesn't have one. NorthSky doesn't have one. You can currently be a BlackSky user, but if BlueSky bans you, your posts become invisible.

ActivityPub's lack of portable identity is a pretty serious problem, but the fact that significant portions of ATProto still rely on centralized infrastructure with no credible path to decentralization is pretty clearly worse[1].

[1] There are only two credible relays, and only one credible app view, and building/running either requires hundreds of times more capital than spinning up a Mastodon instance.

> I still think there's room for something better technically. Mastodon seems more true to the decentralized ethos but I've never quite gotten used to the server dependency experience.

There's more servers on Mastodon, yes, so in that way it is decentralized more. But as a user, I have a lot more sovereignty over my data on Bluesky than I get having my account on a Mastodon / fediverse. I can set up my own PDS quite easily, or move to another, or back to BlueSky hosting very easy. I appreciate this decentralization a lot.

And I have a much better chance of being able to analyze system behavior, understand propoganda networks on atproto/bluesky. Mastodon servers heavily discourage trying to view & understand the network, but Bluesky really lets everyday folks run and analyze the whole firehose, very very cheaply. Which is an incredible decentralization, a very powerful syndication that it's protocols enable, that's simply unmatched. Still, research is being done on both networks: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45507566

Seems like the hard truth is all these alternate platforms that offer their technology as the reason to get on it ... it's just not a great selling point for someone who wants to post "woah watch out driving tonight, it's slippery out there" or cat pics. I think that's a lot of users.

The content of the posts and some level of moderation is the selling point.

Personally that's kinda a bummer, because IMO my biggest disappointment is that its just Twitter but little different. Same pithy posts and petty bickering:(

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