For Bluer Skies: Bluesky as a Viable Alternative to X

Mom said tomorrow is my turn to post the Bluesky article.

what's the problem with mastodon?

Mastodon's recommendation algorithm isn't sufficiently addicting

Mastodon lacks venture capital to fund an army of PR flacks to plant stories in EVERY FUCKING NEWS WEBSITE IN THE UNIVERSE.

I'm liking bluesky a lot, seems like they rolled back most of twitters toxicity. I'm seeing a lot of communities jump over and I'm all for it, we need more options on social media.

Yeah, the constant negative circlejerking on Lemmy is getting pretty tiresome.

More competition is better.
- I have to agree. Blocking hexbear and ml helped a lot

I hate that social media business news qualifies as "technology" these days.

It doesn't, but the mods (not just these ones, but of any technology community) never seem to remove posts that aren't actually about technology.
- Because the definition of what is and isn’t technology is arbitrary. Wikipedia says “Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way.” By that definition, social media is a technology (uses knowledge of computers and networking to enable online communication), but also so are most human creations.
The atproto architecture is technology though. Open source and all

The collapse of X should've been the movement to get rid of social media, not replace it with another identical platform

...he said on social media...

Okay, so it's a link aggregate, but still.

Why everyone's so happy about BlueSky and Threads though is what pisses me off, and it's that's they are in the safe arms of a corporate daddy.

Submissive little shites.
- Decentralized/OSS platforms >>> Multiple competing centralized platforms >>> One single centralized platform
  
  Bluesky and Threads are both bad but having more options than Twitter/X is still a step in the right direction, especially given the direction Musk is taking it in. As much as I like the fediverse (I won't be using either Threads or BlueSky anytime soon), it still has a lot of problems surrounding ease of use. Lemmy, Mastodon, Misskey, etc. would benefit a lot from improving the signup process so that the average user doesn't need to be overwhelmed with picking an instance and understanding how federation works.
- My guess is most normal people just want to be where every other normal person is and to have comment moderation enforced.
- You're not wrong about Lemmy also being social media, but I view it as my methodone for Reddit. Long term I think I will get rid of Lemmy too.
Platforms like Twitter are incredibly useful for following public figures and journalists, your feed doesn’t have to be all brainrot. Having a similar platform that’s not in the hands of a billionaire freak is in the public interest.
- But it is all brain rot since they changed their algorithm and started feeding me what posts they want to feed and showing me people Idon’t follow
- RSS rests in peace
- Yeah but bluesky isn't that.

So tired of hearing about this platform that, afaiu, is barely even federated and not really decentralized. Why the hype when fedi exists?

Talkin' 'bout the placebo syndrome.
Because people are using it
- A very vocal minority is using it, and only because Musk changed the moderation rules on X. Otherwise Twitter was as shit as it has ever been
fediverse is great but it's not for the general public, sadly.
- this is the only argument repeated and no one ever comes up with exactly how it's not for the general public, only that it isn't.
  
  and don't say algorithms. the general public constantly laments about how algorithms have ruined everything.
Because there's VC money behind it.
Because Bluesky is less evil than X. At least for now.
Bcuz fedi ass
- says the person on fedi

I have a really hard time seeing a difference between X and Bluesky. Both are run by billionaires for their amusement and benefit. Why are people so hopeful about bluesky?

Dorsey is no longer involved with Bluesky.
- Oh, really? OK, that makes it definatelly less terrible. I guess I need to update myself about the organization behind it then. Thanks for the correction!
- He's not involved with Twitter either. That doesn't make it not terrible.
- Dorsey is THE founder of BLUESKY, and is it's largest shareholder, even though he is no longer on the board, and went through the theater of closing his BLUESKY account, he will have the say as to who BLUESKY is sold to, when eventually it will be. Fool me once.
Having used it for several days now, I can tell you the difference is that Bluesky is a lot like Lemmy - not filled with hate and vitriol, and easy to make it what you want by selecting your feeds and following things you care about while pruning the rest.

The people who can't socialize properly with others are swiftly dealt with. Subscription blocklists make it really easy to just annihilate any possible interaction between yourself and undesirables. I have several blocklist subscriptions for MAGA chuds and White Supremacists for example. And when you block someone on Bluesky they can't see what you write and you'll never see anything from them ever again. Zero interaction from that point on. So the housekeeping actions actually keep the house clean.

Once you've done the initial housekeeping, it's just full of people talking about cool stuff, and when someone crashes the party to be nasty they are quickly shown the door. It's wonderful.
- Also trying out Bluesky, and it is a lot like Twitter used to be, but it has the potential to turn out like Xitter is today, because at the end of the day Bluesky is a for-profit startup corporation.
  
  Sooner or later, Bluesky is going to want to make money for its shareholders, and that means any of: 1) Selling advertisements, 2) Selling your personal data, and/or 3) In a classic tech startup play, selling itself to the highest bidder like: Android, YouTube, and yes, Twitter.
  
  And with commercialization, or in Xitter's case a fool with too much money, comes enshittification.
  
  Lemmy is nothing like a for-profit startup company, as far as I know, but that doesn't make it enshittification-proof, but at least it won't take the commercialization route.
- Sounds like Mastodon.
It's run by a millionaire, not a billionaire. People like it because it's Twitter without Musk. That's it.
- I never understood the appeal of Twitter.
- That's a big motivator for the migration but that's not "it," people on bsky seem to prefer the way blocking on bsky works, especially since X made your posts visible to people you have blocked.
Because one of them is actively promoting and favouring viewpoints many people find abhorrent.

The fact it's owned by a billionaire isn't the major concern for most people.
- Yes. Having centralized ownership (to whatever extent) is a concern for sure, but it's a hypothetical concern in and of itself: "what if the leadership does bad things?" Is different from "the leadership is currently doing bad things."
  
  Decentralization helps. But if the networks effects aren't behind it, jumping from platform to platform when things DO get bad is also viable.
- Who's the billionaire?
The problem is not that they are billionaires. But one is run by an obvious malignant narcissist, and the other is not.
One is responsible the other is not.

Here's a very down to earth explanation of why Twitter after Musk became an ethical problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8zfgIgZ4c0

Despite the predictable dumpster fire of a comment section sharing this would inevitably lead too, I’m glad you shared it, it was a pleasant read.

Mom said tomorrow is my turn to post the Bluesky article.

When bluesky gets enshitified i wont be suprised. Imagine tge alternative reality we could have had if they chose activpub.

Doesn't Threads use AP?
- Yeah and contraversial take i think as long as there are strict rules about not allowing single direction federation or federating ads then they should be allowed to fededate.

Oh, gee, there's this thing called Bluesky that's an alternative to Xitter?

Never seen anything about it ever posted here and in every other community before, thanks for letting us know!

Pages that don't work well with darkreader aren't many, but when they do fail they fail somewhat entertainingly:

Black Death as a Viable Alternative for Cholera.

Ah yes, always good to retreat to a safespace of open, and honest dialogue. Sadly, liberals can't stand not forcing their opinion on people so this will be shortlived.

Does it hurt when you need to stop talking enough to listen, or does the listening part never happen for you?
liberal's meaning is basically giving people rights
Yo, are you okay?

I'm getting Google+ vibes.