Take a sip
November 16, 2024 9:55 PM Subscribe
As part of its open ethos, BlueSky provides access to "the Firehose" -- a real-time feed of all updates from across the entire network, an increasingly rare feature as more and more of the web gets walled off. The code for it looks pretty complicated, but it enables some really neat visualizations: there's the Firesky infinite scroll, with messages firing too fast to read -- Nightsky, a charming page that imagines the network as stars twinkling in the heavens -- and coolest of all, Firehose 3D, which converts the BlueSky feed into a three-dimensional dungeon crawl in the style of old Windows screensavers. Discover more projects built on the API via the Community Showcase, or check out the growing list of MeFites that are active on the platform, now that it no longer requires an invite.
I remember when I first joined there was a firehose feed, and I checked it once, and what I saw will be etched on the inside of my eyelids whenever I drift off to sleep for the rest of my life, lacing the last seconds of every waking day with insight into the true horror of existence in an uncaring universe. And that’s when I knew it was a social network for me.
posted by Kattullus at 1:37 AM on November 17, 2024 [16 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 1:37 AM on November 17, 2024 [16 favorites]
The Brazil thing with Twitter did the key lifting of seeding Bluesky with an adequate quantity of Sickos, who are crucial to any healthy social media ecosystem
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:24 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:24 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
That new thing is shiney! The "starter packs" tool is neat ... however there's already mefi.social which is properly federated to the open social networks in ways unrealised as-yet by BlueSky's promises.
jwz summarises "it's still a nazi bar" while linking to further analysis that BlueSky's first users include a cluster called That Part of Twitter carrying crypto scammers and Bannon-adjacent people.
(The label 'effective altruist' is used, but where's the fruit borne from those choices? Has it made any lives better beyond those hoarding cash for their own later benefit? That's to say "show me the positive effects, and I'll believe it's altruistic.")
posted by k3ninho at 2:37 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
jwz summarises "it's still a nazi bar" while linking to further analysis that BlueSky's first users include a cluster called That Part of Twitter carrying crypto scammers and Bannon-adjacent people.
(The label 'effective altruist' is used, but where's the fruit borne from those choices? Has it made any lives better beyond those hoarding cash for their own later benefit? That's to say "show me the positive effects, and I'll believe it's altruistic.")
posted by k3ninho at 2:37 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
Funnily enough was just discussing when one of the "BuT JaCk DoRsEy!!" brigade would show up on this thread.
That new thing is shiney!
(eyerolls) Except it's not new, and the various blocking controls make it easy to rapidly block nazis, TERFS and (um, awkward) relentlessly negative bores, though there haven't been many of them on Bluesky.
I do not give a shit whether a place is federated or decentrificated or compatible with Linux version plop blah blah blah. Some people are, and they seem to be the ones on their own in the kitchen at parties, but that's their choice. Life is short, and you may - probably will - die a lot sooner than you wish from Covid, Bird Flu, cancer or a climate change event.
And maybe you are happier with your tombstone saying "Proudly never joined a centralised network". But I prefer to spend the remaining time, here in the anthropocene, conversing with the good, interesting, useful and fun people, wherever they are, rather than ... yeah, heading back to Bluesky now for a more enjoyable and positive time than this dreary conversation. Toodle pip.
posted by Wordshore at 3:08 AM on November 17, 2024 [31 favorites]
That new thing is shiney!
(eyerolls) Except it's not new, and the various blocking controls make it easy to rapidly block nazis, TERFS and (um, awkward) relentlessly negative bores, though there haven't been many of them on Bluesky.
I do not give a shit whether a place is federated or decentrificated or compatible with Linux version plop blah blah blah. Some people are, and they seem to be the ones on their own in the kitchen at parties, but that's their choice. Life is short, and you may - probably will - die a lot sooner than you wish from Covid, Bird Flu, cancer or a climate change event.
And maybe you are happier with your tombstone saying "Proudly never joined a centralised network". But I prefer to spend the remaining time, here in the anthropocene, conversing with the good, interesting, useful and fun people, wherever they are, rather than ... yeah, heading back to Bluesky now for a more enjoyable and positive time than this dreary conversation. Toodle pip.
posted by Wordshore at 3:08 AM on November 17, 2024 [31 favorites]
Personally I found Bluesky easier to use. I made a real effort to make Mastodon work for me. My main problem was that I have wildly divergent social groups, and just finding them on Mastodon was prohibitively difficult, and once I found them I had to learn a whole new way of adding people. Often, by the time I found the people I was looking for, they were inactive.
I don’t have a group that can just move to one server. My online social group roughly divides in MeFites, old real life friends from the US, Icelanders, Finns, writers and random others whose online acquaintance I’ve made through the years. I went through many Mastodon tutorials and guides, but I could never get it to do what I wanted.
Bluesky, on the other hand, made it easy. Already when I joined sometime in the spring of 2023, there were already a bunch of Icelanders and MeFites, so I had the seed of my social group already there. A bunch of writers and Finns showed up, and the real life acquaintes started trickling in too.
I am sympathetic to the idea that a truly decentralized network would be better. But ultimately I don’t use social media because I’m interested in the nuts and bolts of the technology. I want to remain in contact with people who matter to me. And Bluesky has made that easy. If in the future it stops being useful for that, I’ll drift away. If it fills up with racists, sexists and transphobes, I’ll make my exit post-haste. And If it shuts down all of a sudden while in rude health, I’ll carry a grudge about that until the day I die (ask me about Google Reader).
posted by Kattullus at 3:30 AM on November 17, 2024 [14 favorites]
I don’t have a group that can just move to one server. My online social group roughly divides in MeFites, old real life friends from the US, Icelanders, Finns, writers and random others whose online acquaintance I’ve made through the years. I went through many Mastodon tutorials and guides, but I could never get it to do what I wanted.
Bluesky, on the other hand, made it easy. Already when I joined sometime in the spring of 2023, there were already a bunch of Icelanders and MeFites, so I had the seed of my social group already there. A bunch of writers and Finns showed up, and the real life acquaintes started trickling in too.
I am sympathetic to the idea that a truly decentralized network would be better. But ultimately I don’t use social media because I’m interested in the nuts and bolts of the technology. I want to remain in contact with people who matter to me. And Bluesky has made that easy. If in the future it stops being useful for that, I’ll drift away. If it fills up with racists, sexists and transphobes, I’ll make my exit post-haste. And If it shuts down all of a sudden while in rude health, I’ll carry a grudge about that until the day I die (ask me about Google Reader).
posted by Kattullus at 3:30 AM on November 17, 2024 [14 favorites]
Cory Doctorow on why he won't be joining another silo any time soon.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:35 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:35 AM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
It's all been downhill since the last telegram was sent in 2006!
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:01 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:01 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
Wordshore: Funnily enough was just discussing when one of the "BuT JaCk DoRsEy!!" brigade...
It's post-Dorsey, the Blockchain LLC outfit that bought him out are Bannon-adjacent far-right crypto grifters. Have your convenience -- may the leopard never eat your face -- and don't support a leopard-breeding program!
posted by k3ninho at 5:13 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
It's post-Dorsey, the Blockchain LLC outfit that bought him out are Bannon-adjacent far-right crypto grifters. Have your convenience -- may the leopard never eat your face -- and don't support a leopard-breeding program!
posted by k3ninho at 5:13 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
Cory Doctorow on why he won't be joining another silo any time soon.
Well, in that case, I guess I’ll have to give Bluesky a try.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:28 AM on November 17, 2024 [16 favorites]
Well, in that case, I guess I’ll have to give Bluesky a try.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:28 AM on November 17, 2024 [16 favorites]
Fwiw, I’ve spent a lot of time with the Farcaster social media system this year, and I like how it’s designed with decentralized registration, posting, and moderation. Farcaster is a protocol, and others are building their own servers and clients.
If you disagree with the Farcaster team’s decisions, it’s easy for individuals or communities to go their own way.
Farcaster Network
Farcaster Apps
posted by shipstone at 5:37 AM on November 17, 2024
If you disagree with the Farcaster team’s decisions, it’s easy for individuals or communities to go their own way.
Farcaster Network
Farcaster Apps
posted by shipstone at 5:37 AM on November 17, 2024
I've been on Mastodon since shortly after Twitter was sold. I'm following 2k+ accounts there, which provide a variety of perspectives but notably very few from my professional field of postsecondary writing instruction.
I started following accounts on BlueSky last week when the surge was hitting. While following less than a few hundred people, I've already come across dozens of writing scholars and practitioners, including several sharing a fantastic piece on refusing AI in writing instruction. On BlueSky, I've been able to find critical voices within my field that have been less visible through dominant professional organizations.
I've no doubt that as a private company (no matter how public benefit-oriented) BlueSky could face a fate like that of Twitter. But for now, it's a useful tool for me.
posted by audi alteram partem at 7:24 AM on November 17, 2024 [18 favorites]
I started following accounts on BlueSky last week when the surge was hitting. While following less than a few hundred people, I've already come across dozens of writing scholars and practitioners, including several sharing a fantastic piece on refusing AI in writing instruction. On BlueSky, I've been able to find critical voices within my field that have been less visible through dominant professional organizations.
I've no doubt that as a private company (no matter how public benefit-oriented) BlueSky could face a fate like that of Twitter. But for now, it's a useful tool for me.
posted by audi alteram partem at 7:24 AM on November 17, 2024 [18 favorites]
Like Kattullus, I found Mastodon opaque and difficult to use. I got on the Bluesky waitlist early, so in contrast to my Johnny-Come-Lately MetaFilter user ID, I’m #6,091 out of 18MM over there. It’s fun adding all the new follows!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:15 AM on November 17, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:15 AM on November 17, 2024 [6 favorites]
Mastodon seems a lot like the old web blogs where you had to hear about it from a friend of a friend. Then there were people who run "best of the web" aggregator sites, like MetaFilter, Kottke, others. You hear about things but much slower than twitter/bluesky. So of course more people will prefer the faster.
I've been thinking of Bluesky, been looking around about it, then came across this in a thread on HN discussing the recent surge in signups:
"The engagement hacking has started"
[snip]
add-sub-mul-div 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]
The Twitter replacement for me isn't Bluesky, it's a combination of Bluesky and being less online. I won't get attached to Bluesky. If it significantly degrades like Twitter I'll move on from it pretty easily. I've already started to get mildly turned off by Bluesky since it began interrupting profiles and feeds with "suggestion" blocks. The engagement hacking has started.
posted by aleph at 9:05 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
I've been thinking of Bluesky, been looking around about it, then came across this in a thread on HN discussing the recent surge in signups:
"The engagement hacking has started"
[snip]
add-sub-mul-div 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]
The Twitter replacement for me isn't Bluesky, it's a combination of Bluesky and being less online. I won't get attached to Bluesky. If it significantly degrades like Twitter I'll move on from it pretty easily. I've already started to get mildly turned off by Bluesky since it began interrupting profiles and feeds with "suggestion" blocks. The engagement hacking has started.
posted by aleph at 9:05 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
Well, in that case, I guess I’ll have to give Bluesky a try.
What has the poor guy (Doctorow) done to deserve this snark? Particularly on this particular topic? I don't really understand anyone in a post-Musk world who thinks private platforms are a great idea.
posted by ropeladder at 9:20 AM on November 17, 2024 [6 favorites]
What has the poor guy (Doctorow) done to deserve this snark? Particularly on this particular topic? I don't really understand anyone in a post-Musk world who thinks private platforms are a great idea.
posted by ropeladder at 9:20 AM on November 17, 2024 [6 favorites]
"What has the poor guy (Doctorow)..."
Seeing backlash about "enshittification" this and "enshittification" that.
Overuse backlash, the usual snark, and whatever.
posted by aleph at 9:39 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
Seeing backlash about "enshittification" this and "enshittification" that.
Overuse backlash, the usual snark, and whatever.
posted by aleph at 9:39 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
What has the poor guy (Doctorow) done to deserve this snark? Particularly on this particular topic? I don't really understand anyone in a post-Musk world who thinks private platforms are a great idea.
Particularly as, having read his post, he makes an excellent point that is enough to sway me from starting an account on blue sky.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 9:52 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
Particularly as, having read his post, he makes an excellent point that is enough to sway me from starting an account on blue sky.
posted by UltraMorgnus at 9:52 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
I can’t believe we’re all just willing to give this craziness another go. I’m sure it all work out just fine this time..???
posted by flamk at 10:36 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by flamk at 10:36 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
Depends on the craziness you mean. I don't see anyway to stop people from talking to other people. Even over the Internet. Personally, at this point, I have simple rules. Anything I participate in I require the ability to turn off *all* "engagement hacking". There seems to be quite a few people happy with at least some of the Algorithms. Or addicted or ...
After that Network effects heavily weigh my choices.
posted by aleph at 10:43 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
After that Network effects heavily weigh my choices.
posted by aleph at 10:43 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
I gave Mastodon a shot, but the server I joined is super heavy-handed with blocking (seriously? blocking the BBC because you didn't like an article?) so it felt like I was still having randos shaping my internet experience the way they want it. If that's the case, might as well use the one with the better UI/UX.
posted by haileris23 at 10:51 AM on November 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by haileris23 at 10:51 AM on November 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
I'm hoping to see tools come out like the old ones that combined several message clients into one interface. Something that could dual post to a Mastodon Server and Bluesky. The Bluesky would be for now (mostly) while it takes time for the Mastodon network to do its slow growing. If it doesn't die instead.
Both of them are open (at this point) so it should be possible.
posted by aleph at 10:52 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
Both of them are open (at this point) so it should be possible.
posted by aleph at 10:52 AM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
"...randos shaping my internet experience the way they want it."
That's the thing about Federation, there are different areas with different policies/moderators. Finding compatible ones is something people are not used to and would rather not deal with. I'm struggling with it myself.
And yes, the BBC's swing to the Tories (for how long?) hasn't endeared it to some people.
posted by aleph at 10:56 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
That's the thing about Federation, there are different areas with different policies/moderators. Finding compatible ones is something people are not used to and would rather not deal with. I'm struggling with it myself.
And yes, the BBC's swing to the Tories (for how long?) hasn't endeared it to some people.
posted by aleph at 10:56 AM on November 17, 2024 [2 favorites]
I tried Mastodon, I really did, but the people I actually wanted to hang out with weren't on it and the people who were on it were, far too much of the time, people I didn't want to hang out with. It's the perpetual social media problem - network effects are real (see Bluesky's growth curve!) and Mastodon being fairly user-unfriendly and really really unsafe on some critical technical levels made it unworkable for me. I *want* someone else to have to have a registered DMCA agent, access to the enterprise-level anti-CSAM tools, and something resembling a budget to implement the barest-bones of safety precautions. I do not want to do that myself, nor do I want to rely on volunteers. I was skeptical of Bluesky up front but they've made some smart decisions, implemented some really excellent tools (their implementation of a block makes a lot of the worst patterns on Twitter simply disappear) and they won the popularity race at the moment.
Who TF knows what will happen in a year, or five, or fifteen. I don't care, I just want to hang out with my friends and their friends and some randos who post amusing pictures of cats, without having to fend Nazis off with a stick.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:07 AM on November 17, 2024 [12 favorites]
Who TF knows what will happen in a year, or five, or fifteen. I don't care, I just want to hang out with my friends and their friends and some randos who post amusing pictures of cats, without having to fend Nazis off with a stick.
posted by restless_nomad at 11:07 AM on November 17, 2024 [12 favorites]
Alpha, I'm in the same boat. I've got a small group of friends on Mastodon and I've been posting lots of stuff over the last 2 years or so, I realllly don't want to have to maintain a whole second set of posts.
I found one project here that shows it's possible to duplicate Mastodon posts over to Bsky, so it's happening in some fashion. But you'll need an always-on machine that can run this code on a periodic basis.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:58 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
I found one project here that shows it's possible to duplicate Mastodon posts over to Bsky, so it's happening in some fashion. But you'll need an always-on machine that can run this code on a periodic basis.
posted by JoeZydeco at 11:58 AM on November 17, 2024 [1 favorite]
I got a Bluesky after deleting Twitter, and it has for whatever reason been an absolute dud for me. However, I opened a second account that just posts pictures, and that has been a huge success. I don't follow anybody, I just post pictures, everybody loves it. So I pretty much just stopped using my real account and post on my alt all the time; I feel like Clark Kent if he just decided to stay Superman.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:43 PM on November 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 12:43 PM on November 17, 2024 [4 favorites]
Mod note: Several deleted. Please try to to refrain from commenting several times in a row, and allow space for others to chime in if you've made more than a few comments back to back.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 1:46 PM on November 17, 2024
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 1:46 PM on November 17, 2024
I can’t believe we’re all just willing to give this craziness another go.
I dunno. You say that like Enshittification Migration isn't a normal part of life online. It's fine for hacker nerds who run their own servers and breathe Linux to rail about how easy is, and why Mastodon is the only moral choice, but most people just kind of hang out and talk somewhere. They don't build a clubhouse because they don't like the ads at the bar on the corner. (YMMV, obviously.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:52 PM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
I dunno. You say that like Enshittification Migration isn't a normal part of life online. It's fine for hacker nerds who run their own servers and breathe Linux to rail about how easy is, and why Mastodon is the only moral choice, but most people just kind of hang out and talk somewhere. They don't build a clubhouse because they don't like the ads at the bar on the corner. (YMMV, obviously.)
posted by cupcakeninja at 1:52 PM on November 17, 2024 [8 favorites]
I bounced hard off Mastodon-- I know people will tell me I found the wrong instance, but I found it relentlessly serious and leaden. Unless you count the content warning rules on the instance I joined, which were unintentionally hilarious.
OTOH, I was an early adopter at Bluesky (number #40000ish) and I really instantly loved the jokes, the shitposting, even the extremely silly hellpost. It felt like a place where I could relax, and the team seemed like they were doing their level best to make it work. And they still do, even with the current numbers.
The nuclear block means I don't have to deal more than vaguely with reply guys and sealions, and Maga and TERF types get blocked into oblivion so the only people they can talk to is each other. Which-- fine!
I think I'm not too different from other people in the sense that I do not expect social media to last forever. I like to talk to interesting people online. That journey has taken me from USENET and MUDs to LiveJournal to Metafilter (on and off over the years) to the Culture Studies Discord which got me through the pandemic and now to Bluesky.
All those places (except MetaFilter) have been more or less lost in the mists of time.
*But* I still have the friends I made along the way from all those places. I still have the jewelry I ordered from cool young makers around me. I still have the jokes and the knowledge and the networks. I don't need the infrastructure of conversation to be perfect-- but I want the conversation.
(and side bonus that Bluesky made me interested in dipping my toe back in here again after some years away, so there is that too.)
(Obligatory note that BlueSky has had a lot of issues-- not claiming it is even remotely perfect. My only claim is that I like it.)
posted by frumiousb at 2:04 PM on November 17, 2024 [13 favorites]
OTOH, I was an early adopter at Bluesky (number #40000ish) and I really instantly loved the jokes, the shitposting, even the extremely silly hellpost. It felt like a place where I could relax, and the team seemed like they were doing their level best to make it work. And they still do, even with the current numbers.
The nuclear block means I don't have to deal more than vaguely with reply guys and sealions, and Maga and TERF types get blocked into oblivion so the only people they can talk to is each other. Which-- fine!
I think I'm not too different from other people in the sense that I do not expect social media to last forever. I like to talk to interesting people online. That journey has taken me from USENET and MUDs to LiveJournal to Metafilter (on and off over the years) to the Culture Studies Discord which got me through the pandemic and now to Bluesky.
All those places (except MetaFilter) have been more or less lost in the mists of time.
*But* I still have the friends I made along the way from all those places. I still have the jewelry I ordered from cool young makers around me. I still have the jokes and the knowledge and the networks. I don't need the infrastructure of conversation to be perfect-- but I want the conversation.
(and side bonus that Bluesky made me interested in dipping my toe back in here again after some years away, so there is that too.)
(Obligatory note that BlueSky has had a lot of issues-- not claiming it is even remotely perfect. My only claim is that I like it.)
posted by frumiousb at 2:04 PM on November 17, 2024 [13 favorites]
it sounds like a sarcastic oversimplification but I think a key element of what makes Bluesky seem more promising than Mastodon as a Twitter alternative is that Mastodon's software and culture broadly despise pretty much literally everything about Twitter, and Bluesky's… don't. For instance, on Bluesky, you can change your username without effectively having to create a new account from scratch, which a nice feature to have.
A key thing to bear in mind I think is that the reason people spend as much time on Twitter as they do is because they enjoy it, and for a lot of people "it's like Twitter except without all the things you like, which are Fake and Wrong to Like" isn't a persuasive argument for why Mastodon would be Good For You.
I tried pretty hard to like Mastodon! It's good for following the work of programmers and tech pundits, but also I do feel like I have kind of an upper limit to what proportion of my timeline can be Linux People
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:33 PM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
A key thing to bear in mind I think is that the reason people spend as much time on Twitter as they do is because they enjoy it, and for a lot of people "it's like Twitter except without all the things you like, which are Fake and Wrong to Like" isn't a persuasive argument for why Mastodon would be Good For You.
I tried pretty hard to like Mastodon! It's good for following the work of programmers and tech pundits, but also I do feel like I have kind of an upper limit to what proportion of my timeline can be Linux People
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:33 PM on November 17, 2024 [3 favorites]
What has the poor guy (Doctorow) done to deserve this snark?Isn't snarking about Doctorow a MetaFilter tradition harking back to the heyday of Boing Boing, disemvoweling, etc.?
posted by Strutter Cane - United Planets Stilt Patrol at 12:42 AM on November 18, 2024 [2 favorites]
I had the same thought, actually, though I wonder sometimes what the cutoff point is for MetaFilter traditions being viable touchpoints, as folks have joined the site long (in internet years, anyway) after the phenomena have faded.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:24 AM on November 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:24 AM on November 18, 2024 [1 favorite]
UGH this turned out long. Sorry about that.
I do not give a shit whether a place is federated or decentrificated or compatible with Linux version plop blah blah blah. Some people are, and they seem to be the ones on their own in the kitchen at parties, but that's their choice. Life is short, and you may - probably will - die a lot sooner than you wish from Covid, Bird Flu, cancer or a climate change event.
Hey, thanks for the diss! I'm glad that Metafilter still has a culture about making unkind blanket statements about people in earshot. BUT ANYWAY
I have a Bluesky account in addition to mefi.social. Anecdotes are not data, but I find the experience about the same so far. I've gotten a lot of new followers on Bluesky lately, which makes me think I may have appeared on a list, maybe from the Storybundle I have a book in currently going, which we've been promoting in the social places.
Mastodon is far from perfect. It's true, discoverability there is terrible, and it requires a lot more intentionality. But an odd thing, engagement-per-person is much higher. The people who are there really want to be there. A recent episode of the podcast Dot Social revealed that in a trial done by a fundraiser from ProPublica on different social media services, Mastodon reached fewer people, but they out-contributed all the others put together, including Threads with its nearly 250M members. Because, I think, if you're being followed by someone on Mastodon, they really want to hear from you.
And a weird thing is... a lot of elephantpeople are okay with Bluesky's success. Mastodon existed long before Twitter imploded. The vibe I get is that they see it as being in for the long haul. The makers' priorities are different. They don't have to chase meteoric growth. Bluesky had some recent worrying investment from some crypto people. They've promised to steer clear from NFTs and the like, but once the screws begin to tighten, who knows if they'll be able to stick to that? Here's hoping.
Life is short. As I said, I have a Bluesky account, and I'm making an effort to cross-post things. But it's because life is short that I can't risk building up an audience on Bluesky only to have an Elon Musk come out, buy it, and force me to throw all of that away, which involves losing years of work. Mastodon, at the very least, has a mechanism for changing servers and keeping your followers. That's necessary on Mastodon, I've had to use it three times so far in different contexts, but it should be available everywhere.
A key thing to bear in mind I think is that the reason people spend as much time on Twitter as they do is because they enjoy it, and for a lot of people "it's like Twitter except without all the things you like, which are Fake and Wrong to Like" isn't a persuasive argument for why Mastodon would be Good For You.
I'm sure there are people like that, although I don't see them much. I've said this before, but a weird thing about Mastodon is, since you usually only see people you follow, your view of Mastodon can change tremendously depending on where you are. What people have said, elsewhere, about your Mastodon server not mattering, it's really not true I think. I mean (and this is NOT a point in its favor) Truth Social is a Mastodon instance, they just don't federate with anyone.
I gave Mastodon a shot, but the server I joined is super heavy-handed with blocking (seriously? blocking the BBC because you didn't like an article?) so it felt like I was still having randos shaping my internet experience the way they want it.
Yes, this is part of what I mean about servers mattering. You aren't the only person I've heard complain about this, and you can also find some terrible scolds on Mastodon, although I think that's true no matter what social media you use. Again, your server matters, and it's not easy finding a great one. We're really lucky at mefi.social!
That journey has taken me from USENET and MUDs to LiveJournal to Metafilter (on and off over the years) to the Culture Studies Discord which got me through the pandemic and now to Bluesky.
It's interesting to see which of these places your contributions can still be seen on.
USENET: probably, yes, if a server has a history that goes back far enough. It's generally thought that Google's stewardship of the old DejaNews archive will probably end soon though.
MUDs: almost certainly lost
LiveJournal: doesn't it still exist, out there?
Metafilter: MOSTLY okay, although older conversations and posts are starting to resemble swiss cheese in places
Discords: depends on the server's message retention policy, which could be long or short lived. Since Discord owns all the servers though, they could easily limit it to everyone.
while we're at it:
Slack: Recently instituted a change where free Slacks delete older messages after a year.
Mastodon: I think they have bad message archival. If you change servers, your messages do NOT go with you. Media is automatically deleted as space needs to be freed up, and eventually messages will go too.
Bluesky: At the moment seems to keep everything forever, but they haven't been around very long. We'll have to see.
You say that like Enshittification Migration isn't a normal part of life online. It's fine for hacker nerds who run their own servers and breathe Linux to rail about how easy is, and why Mastodon is the only moral choice, but most people just kind of hang out and talk somewhere.
I'd say that Mastodon, while harder than Bluesky, isn't that difficult, truthfully. Most people don't run their own servers, and from a user's perspective, "difficulty" means finding people to follow, the process of changing servers, and having to copy URLs to your home server if you want to follow someone from another server. Users, blessedly, can live in total ignorance of the hated name SIDEKIQ. Some of us use mefi.social, run by our own Pronoiac. (MeMail him if you want an account.) Most of us just want to hang out and talk too. Enshittification might have become normalized (notice my change in phrasing), but not everyone will, or can, put up with that. I'm tired of being a digital nomad. It's why I'm still on Metafilter after all this time.
Isn't snarking about [Cory] Doctorow a MetaFilter tradition harking back to the heyday of Boing Boing, disemvoweling, etc.?
That's probably it. I thought it was odd even back then, and no one really ever successfully explained to me why they do it. It's probably because he has strong opinions, expresses them loudly and forcefully, and lives by them. If you do that, some people are going to get upset, unavoidably.
I'm sure there's more I could respond to, but I'm going to cut this message off here. Use what you want, but please know the limitations and dangers.
posted by JHarris at 12:13 PM on November 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
I do not give a shit whether a place is federated or decentrificated or compatible with Linux version plop blah blah blah. Some people are, and they seem to be the ones on their own in the kitchen at parties, but that's their choice. Life is short, and you may - probably will - die a lot sooner than you wish from Covid, Bird Flu, cancer or a climate change event.
Hey, thanks for the diss! I'm glad that Metafilter still has a culture about making unkind blanket statements about people in earshot. BUT ANYWAY
I have a Bluesky account in addition to mefi.social. Anecdotes are not data, but I find the experience about the same so far. I've gotten a lot of new followers on Bluesky lately, which makes me think I may have appeared on a list, maybe from the Storybundle I have a book in currently going, which we've been promoting in the social places.
Mastodon is far from perfect. It's true, discoverability there is terrible, and it requires a lot more intentionality. But an odd thing, engagement-per-person is much higher. The people who are there really want to be there. A recent episode of the podcast Dot Social revealed that in a trial done by a fundraiser from ProPublica on different social media services, Mastodon reached fewer people, but they out-contributed all the others put together, including Threads with its nearly 250M members. Because, I think, if you're being followed by someone on Mastodon, they really want to hear from you.
And a weird thing is... a lot of elephantpeople are okay with Bluesky's success. Mastodon existed long before Twitter imploded. The vibe I get is that they see it as being in for the long haul. The makers' priorities are different. They don't have to chase meteoric growth. Bluesky had some recent worrying investment from some crypto people. They've promised to steer clear from NFTs and the like, but once the screws begin to tighten, who knows if they'll be able to stick to that? Here's hoping.
Life is short. As I said, I have a Bluesky account, and I'm making an effort to cross-post things. But it's because life is short that I can't risk building up an audience on Bluesky only to have an Elon Musk come out, buy it, and force me to throw all of that away, which involves losing years of work. Mastodon, at the very least, has a mechanism for changing servers and keeping your followers. That's necessary on Mastodon, I've had to use it three times so far in different contexts, but it should be available everywhere.
A key thing to bear in mind I think is that the reason people spend as much time on Twitter as they do is because they enjoy it, and for a lot of people "it's like Twitter except without all the things you like, which are Fake and Wrong to Like" isn't a persuasive argument for why Mastodon would be Good For You.
I'm sure there are people like that, although I don't see them much. I've said this before, but a weird thing about Mastodon is, since you usually only see people you follow, your view of Mastodon can change tremendously depending on where you are. What people have said, elsewhere, about your Mastodon server not mattering, it's really not true I think. I mean (and this is NOT a point in its favor) Truth Social is a Mastodon instance, they just don't federate with anyone.
I gave Mastodon a shot, but the server I joined is super heavy-handed with blocking (seriously? blocking the BBC because you didn't like an article?) so it felt like I was still having randos shaping my internet experience the way they want it.
Yes, this is part of what I mean about servers mattering. You aren't the only person I've heard complain about this, and you can also find some terrible scolds on Mastodon, although I think that's true no matter what social media you use. Again, your server matters, and it's not easy finding a great one. We're really lucky at mefi.social!
That journey has taken me from USENET and MUDs to LiveJournal to Metafilter (on and off over the years) to the Culture Studies Discord which got me through the pandemic and now to Bluesky.
It's interesting to see which of these places your contributions can still be seen on.
USENET: probably, yes, if a server has a history that goes back far enough. It's generally thought that Google's stewardship of the old DejaNews archive will probably end soon though.
MUDs: almost certainly lost
LiveJournal: doesn't it still exist, out there?
Metafilter: MOSTLY okay, although older conversations and posts are starting to resemble swiss cheese in places
Discords: depends on the server's message retention policy, which could be long or short lived. Since Discord owns all the servers though, they could easily limit it to everyone.
while we're at it:
Slack: Recently instituted a change where free Slacks delete older messages after a year.
Mastodon: I think they have bad message archival. If you change servers, your messages do NOT go with you. Media is automatically deleted as space needs to be freed up, and eventually messages will go too.
Bluesky: At the moment seems to keep everything forever, but they haven't been around very long. We'll have to see.
You say that like Enshittification Migration isn't a normal part of life online. It's fine for hacker nerds who run their own servers and breathe Linux to rail about how easy is, and why Mastodon is the only moral choice, but most people just kind of hang out and talk somewhere.
I'd say that Mastodon, while harder than Bluesky, isn't that difficult, truthfully. Most people don't run their own servers, and from a user's perspective, "difficulty" means finding people to follow, the process of changing servers, and having to copy URLs to your home server if you want to follow someone from another server. Users, blessedly, can live in total ignorance of the hated name SIDEKIQ. Some of us use mefi.social, run by our own Pronoiac. (MeMail him if you want an account.) Most of us just want to hang out and talk too. Enshittification might have become normalized (notice my change in phrasing), but not everyone will, or can, put up with that. I'm tired of being a digital nomad. It's why I'm still on Metafilter after all this time.
Isn't snarking about [Cory] Doctorow a MetaFilter tradition harking back to the heyday of Boing Boing, disemvoweling, etc.?
That's probably it. I thought it was odd even back then, and no one really ever successfully explained to me why they do it. It's probably because he has strong opinions, expresses them loudly and forcefully, and lives by them. If you do that, some people are going to get upset, unavoidably.
I'm sure there's more I could respond to, but I'm going to cut this message off here. Use what you want, but please know the limitations and dangers.
posted by JHarris at 12:13 PM on November 19, 2024 [2 favorites]
Oh, on dual-posting: for Android, I've found out about Openvibe, which lets you read and post to Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads at the same time. I notice though that it only supports one Mastodon account at once.
posted by JHarris at 12:22 PM on November 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 12:22 PM on November 19, 2024 [1 favorite]
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Two of those packs, made by @kattullus.bsky.social (thanks) are MeFite packs: [1] [2].
posted by Wordshore at 11:18 PM on November 16, 2024 [9 favorites]