Mastodon has been around since 2016 and has 804k MAU.
The platform has 57 third party apps.
The platform is decentralized and has community ran servers.
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Because centralized services are easier to use.
It’s the path of least resistance to achieve Musklessness. The second two of the positives you listed are actually negatives to the average Joe. Choice paralysis, overwhelming number of apps and servers, these are things that put people off even trying, especially if there are easier-to-use alternatives that are familiar and instant.
Mastodon is great, but it’s not quite there yet in terms of convenience. Too much copying and pasting and clicking through to different instances in order to read old posts etc. It needs to be more cohesive in a way that doesn’t require constantly leaving your timeline or going into the settings.
It’s also the case that the Twitter diaspora who are famous tend to choose BlueSky, and that brings a lot of people along with them.
And it’s also the case that Mastodon doesn’t have much of a marketing campaign outside of word-of-mouth, whereas BlueSky does.
The people leaving Twitter right now want Twitter minus Elon. That’s Bluesky. They’ve heard a couple of their Twitter follows mention it and they’ve gone to their app store where they find an app called Bluesky, install it and easily join and start using it. Once they do they are finding it pretty straightforward to find people they used to follow on Twitter.
That’s all people want.
It’s just easier. I have both but I almost never use Mastodon anymore. Federation there doesn’t seem to work right. I didn’t know what an instance was so I joined mastodon.social. Finding and following people in the app doesn’t always seem to work right if they’re on another instance. Doing it in a browser is even more painful.
The people I liked to follow and interact with on X, many tried Mastodon and abandoned it, and many more are now on Bluesky. This creates momentum to “follow the crowd” as it were.
Additionally, you only have one chance to make a first impression. A lot of us tried Mastodon earlier and it wasn’t ready. Bluesky started as invite-only, which drummed up interest before catching this zeitgeist of people leaving X.
Lastly, and maybe it’s just me, but the font sizing on the official Mastodon app on Android is generally too small and can’t be changed. Bluesky allows me to change it and make it more comfortable to use.
Evidentially mastodon makes it hard to find people on purpose unless you know their name “to stop harassment” I’m told, except I’m not sure how it does that at all and it just makes it harder to use the damn platform. That’s my one real complaint about mastodon.
To paraphrase my opinion from back then:
- Easier onboarding, and a familiar, easier UX
- customizable feeds you can subscribe to + starterpacks instantly give you full timelines and people to follow (and followers, if you’re in many starter packs)
- better discoverability, and therefore higher engagement
- stacking moderation and excellent security features (e.g. detachable quote boosts, “the nuclear block”)
- many users who tried Mastodon first had bad experiences with “HOA”-like behavior and over-enthusiastic mods
You want the bullshit “Mastodon is too complicated and hard to use!” answer or the real answer?
BlueSky has rich people behind it.
They’re the same answer.
You need money to market applications to users. Bluesky is sold the same way that Twitter is, your favorite moron celebrity might hit like or retweet on your stuff.
They aren’t really the same answer.
People suggest that Mastodon is too complicated for the average knuckle-dragging moron to use (and it might be, but frankly I consider that a pro, not a con) because it has “servers”, as if the entire point of the internet wasn’t to have a global network of communication across a multitude of clients and servers. Do these same people think the concept of websites and email are also too complex for the regular person? Maybe… But again, if the regular person is that fucking dumb do we really want have them in our community at all?
What’s more, BlueSky is supposedly federated (or “will be”™), and as such it’ll have to deal with all of the same challenges around federation that Mastodon deals with, and people are kidding themselves if they think otherwise.
Otherwise I agree with your last sentence. Social media is about money and fame, first and foremost. The average person will always go where the most money and fame are concentrated.
Tbf the internet is entirely comprised of like 6 websites if you ask the average Joe, and I’m damn inclined to agree as someone who remembers webrings fondly and misses geocities (it’s like the bell curve meme lol, and btw yes I know about neocities I’m just sleeping on it).
But I agree, if they can email they can mastodon, it’s the same shit.
I’m dabbling in Bluesky atm. Having run my own Masto server for over a year at this point. Here’s things I’ve found that Bluesky does just plain better - mostly cause it’s not beholden to the whims of the ActivityPub protocol.
- Shows me all replies to any post I happen to come across.
- Lets me see all posts about things I happen to search/look for, including hashtags.
- I don’t have to worry about being unable to see content I haven’t personally blocked (not so much of an issue on a small/single server like mine though).
- I can repost things (not actually too bothered with this one but many people want it).
- I can set per post reply permissions to a very granular level (no-one, mentioned, followers, specific followers)
- It handles video in a way that works i.e. I can post them, and people can watch them with minimal buffering/waiting.
- Gives me access to community built collections/algorithms that expose the content I want to see.
- It defaults to providing an additional feed driven by what the people I’m following are liking/interacting with.
- Finally, a big one for new users, it provided a default feed of content when I first logged in so that I had something to look at.
The first two are huge on a small/single user server. By default we get nothing, following a single account will get us the content of just that account and the replies that they happen to reply to. A post may get 200 replies, but unless I go looking on the original server I will see a fraction of that. Technical solutions exist to help with this but the Fediverse’s penchant for privacy and control (quite rightly) limits the effectiveness (Fedifetcher, GetMoarFedi).
3 is something most people won’t think about. But if they become aware they’re not seeing something they thought they’d be able to they then have to deep dive into who’s defederating who and why.
Most all the other points just make the whole thing a much more seamless experience for your average user. Bootstrapping a list of people to follow on a small server is hard (I’d absolutely recommend creating a Fediverse account somewhere large first to build up some sort of list before migrating)
Because it pretends to be different to the centralised corporate social media platforms, whilst giving the cohesive experience of a centralised platform
Best answer yet IMO. The cohesive experience is essential to the branding, and low threshold for entry.
All those federated platform will only become popular if the backend is dumb and the frontend is smart, i.e. you create your account on a frontend but can use the same credentials to connect via another frontend and no matter which frontend you connect to, all content for the platform is accessible to you, there’s no admin having control over your experience, only people offering different UI experiences. Federation/defederation/deciding to host NSFW content, that’s all taken care of behind the scene just like on Reddit, for the user they’re just using Lemmy via frontend X or Y and they decide what communities and users they want to block.
Bluesky is federated and mit licensed
This practically means nothing tbh. Social networks when they gain economies of scale due to the network effect will effectively shed all the pretense of open source and open platform etc.
We’ve seen it with Facebook, Google, etc, during the 2010’s with closing of chat standards and destruction of XMPP. Reddit 3rd Party API access is another example of this. We’ll see it again.
None of that applies here, can you give a specific method?
I’m talking about Mastodon and Lemmy and such since that’s what OP is complaining about
It’s shiny, they advertise, put in a money to spread the word. And the onboarding process probably is way easier?! Also back when Mastodon was in the media, it wasn’t yet the right time. Now, especially with Musk, it is. And the attention is on Bluesky since that is newer and what’s hyped right now.
@hendrik do they advertise? Honest question :blobBone_dance:
I wouldn’t know, I have a lot of adblockers etc. But it gets to me via word of mouth. And it’s been in the media a lot this year. Due to their business decisions, new approach, novelty… That’s something they did very well. They also took care building some hype and anticipation with their invite-only period. Mastodon has also been in the news. But that was yesterday’s news and I suppose everyone forgets yesterday’s news.
Sign up process is easier. No existential decisions to be made to get started.
It’s because of the connotation with an overrated metal band of the same name.
/s for the overly serious
Every platform and app I’ve seen does a piss poor job of explaining what federation is and how to sign up. “Wtf is mastodon.social?, Why is this one in German?, Why can’t I login after signing up?” New users just get confused and give up.
Unpopular opinion here, but: as opposed to other twitter clones like Hive Social and such, that also look sleek and are simple, but didn’t go anywhere, Bluesky did manage to attract a sizeable crowd of creative and talented open source indie devs that are passionate about it and build cool stuff on atproto. Whether it’s custom feeds or star sign labelers or alternative clients that add more features or entirely new appviews like the oekaki board PinkSea, you get the feeling it is a pretty vibrant ecosystem and this has sustained it all these months.
While this is true for the Fediverse as well, I think it’s fair to say that there have been rumblings here about lack of direction and proper stewardship of the Fediverse and if you want this place to succeed you can’t just sweep it under the rug, shrug your shoulders and say “well, people who pick Bluesky over Mastodon are just stupid”.
Because people will choose convenience over their vey own survival. Also, in this case, they apparently don’t see a problem with leaving Twitter because it’s MAGA to join BS which is backed by MAGA money. Convenience über alles. Ethics be damned. I’m fine with people like that not joining the fediverse.
