Hey, I wanted to ask someone who has probably more knowledge than me about it - what’s the difference about these two services? I know Mastodon has ActivityPub, so it works with Lemmy, and BlueSky has it’s own kind of federation, but does it even has anything to federate to?
I’m asking not which one is better, I’m searching logical argument for one or other. I’m obviously more leaning toward Mastodon since I’m here, but I wanted to give my friend, who is thinking about joining, some real arguments.
Bluesky is the first app built on the ATProtocol, its protocol for federation, sort of like how Mastodon was among the first to use ActivityPub after the overcomplexity of OStatus. The ATProtocol is a few years younger than ActivityPub, so its landscape isn’t fleshed out yet. Currently Bluesky caters more towards creators, artists, and social togetherness, whereas ActivityPub tends to lean harder into attracting techies. Both protocols can be run as independent instances, but most people are still using bsky.social for now until more instances pop up and federate together. The process for hosting a Bluesky instance is still undergoing development, but all features of it have been opened up. There exist multiple bridge systems that can interweave ActivityPub with ATProto.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds
https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/entries/Notes on Running a Full-Network atproto Relay (July 2024)
Blue sky is for people who want something that works. Mastodon is for people who think they know how to make it work.
Two of my friends who hate elmo and his version of twitter didnt stick with mastodon and they’re a senior developer and a sys admin, but now they’re both on bluesky. I no longer think the fediverse is too hard for people, I think people don’t want to deal with the way it works. The user expirence and onboarding in the fediverse is simply outclassed by, well everything more popular than it.
Unfortunately, fair point, yeah. I wish it weren’t like this. I’m here, and both those places, and I have to say that my engagement with BlueSky is far higher. That said, Lemmy and Mastodon have the potential to be something very special.
Bluesky is cool and trendy. Mastodon isn’t.
Damn. I knew I belonged on Mastodon but you didn’t have to be so blunt about it…
To be fair, Bluesky has been a really good and positive experience for me so far. And I’ve used Mastodon and Twitter.
I keep trying to want to use Mastodon. But I’m using Bluesky far more. Heck, maybe more than here at this point, just because it’s been so…refreshingly positive.
And I had absolutely no interest in Twitter at any point.
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This sums it up
Bluesky is the Microsoft Word of social media, which I mean in the derogatory sense, as the fediverse is the LaTeX of social media, which I also mean in the derogatory sense
Bluesky is easy on the beginner and mimics X as a whole world in your single feed. Mastodon (fediverse) carry way to much technical concepts to understand and get the most out of it.
What do you need to understand about the technical concepts? Join an instance (mastodon.social if you have no reason to select another one), post and follow.
That’s where the first question woul pop up. Which instance to choose? What to consider when choosing? That’s where the first less technically inclined will already abort.
Just pick any, it doesn’t matter
That question would start a very long post. Let’s keep it simple:
- you may never find your communities again (hashtag ? what is that ? why should I hashtag to make it searchable and make it stick…)
- your posts may never reach your friends, or general audience (defederation, admin instance ban…)
- the global timeline is not a global timeline as in X or Bsky, or Insta or any other social media, just what your instance admin and federation relatations “agreed” to show you …
Why do you need to understand any of that? Now, none of it is wrong - but it’s not something anyone signing up at a Mastodon instance absolute must know about to use the system and have a good troll-free social network experience.
On the contrary. Maybe those are exactly the things needed to avoid becoming Xitter. Bluesky is rapidly becoming another instance of the hellhole at this very moment.
I agree on the unfortunate and predictable bluesky’s future. Corporate, politics, ads… Avoiding to become “Xitter” should not rely on end users computer knowledge, technical abilities, geeky mindset. I think you understand that too: KISS is a huge success factor. That’s just my 2cts.
I’ve been waiting for everyone around me to “understand computers” for forty years.
No luck. They’re just as clueless as they have ever been.
You’d think I’d be less boggled by it now, but nope.
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Bluesky is very left leaning which I’m not sure I like. An example, the other day there was a thread about using blocklists and a user said they are silly because you have to trust the creator of that list. Another user said talk like that will get you blocked, many people agreed with the second user. That culture worries me. BTW I agree with the first user.
How is this an example of “left leaning”?
US Republicans have successfully pushed a narrative that the left is “all about censorship”
And we’ll burn any books that say otherwise!
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I appreciate the self-reflection.
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You can block hashtags or words, and you can set a time period to do so. From an hour to forever.
I’ve been on Mastodon for a couple of years and, for me, it’s so boring. Been on Bluesky for about a week. I currently have more followers and am following more than I ever did on Mastodon.
To me, that’s an argument for Mastodon.
Could just write your tweets in notepad you know. If you don’t want anyone to see what you do.
I’m definitely one of the people who is happy to contribute via comments, but have zero interest in having “Followers”. It’s going to be very rare that I have a brand new post worth ssubmitting and dont get any kind of domamine hit from building a “following” like a ton of people seem to.
That’s why community- and post-oriented systems like Lemmy/mbin and classic forums have always made way way more sense to me.
But for some reason i’m liking Bluesky. Can’t figure out why.
How did you know that??
Nah, I just think the whole ‘follower’ thing is weird.
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Bluesky if you’re at all a normy, Mastodon if all you care about it Linux, News, and pedantry.
BlueSky is mastodon where the main instance has ads and a marketing team. Otherwise really similar.
The difference is one is where people will continue going, the other is where people will continue crying because people won’t go.
Is Mastodon Lemmy? Is bluesky Twitter alternative? I just want reddit alternative.
Mastodon has a certain level of federated connectivity with Lemmy, but it’s also a Twitter alternative, similar in that way to BlueSky. Lemmy (or mBin) is the Reddit alternative.
I think the biggest end user perspective difference between mastodon and Lemmy is mastodon is designed more for following people and organizations and the occasional hashtag topic like Twitter, Lemmy is closer to reddit in that is more organized for topics and communities where individual identities are less important, less people use legal names, etc. I also see more advertising on mastodon but that may just be an instance or moderator thing and not a general difference.
Mastodon is like if Twitter could read reddit, Instagram, and various other social media network posts as Tweets, except every social network is a much tinier version of it.
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