I think those of us that treat social media services this way are a minority in the grand picture. If BlueSky continues to be effective, network effect will pull in a steady stream of users, including ones that may have balked before.
It is poising itself to be a 1:1 drop-in replacement for Twitter. Federated services like Mastodon aren’t that (and aren’t trying to be).
I wholly believe that the majority of Twitter users have no interest in federated platforms as alternatives. By comparison, platforms like Mastodon feel vaguely like Twitter but more fractured and isolated. Everyone was on Twitter. Comparatively no one is on Mastodon. Discovery is awful and micromanaging instances and subscriptions is tedious busywork. “Why can’t it just be all in one convenient place, like on Twitter? This is so stupid and complicated,” I expect most would complain.
Federated platforms are loved by us because we value the fine control and we like putting in effort to curate our feeds. The complexity is the appeal. But I think it’s negative appeal to the type of person who has gotten accustomed to an algorithm doing all of that for them, and I think that’s most people. You can use federated platforms out of the box and they’ll “just work” without all the tinkering, but it will be very bland and vapid. It only becomes great when you put in work to make it great for yourself.
The thing BlueSky seems to be promising is that big, monolithic platform that Twitter was and most people want. And I think they’re the only notable player in that game, so they’ll completely corner that market. As long as they don’t trip over any footguns (and I don’t believe making the beta invite-only is one of them), I believe they’re going to succeed greatly.
I think those of us that treat social media services this way are a minority in the grand picture. If BlueSky continues to be effective, network effect will pull in a steady stream of users, including ones that may have balked before.
It is poising itself to be a 1:1 drop-in replacement for Twitter. Federated services like Mastodon aren’t that (and aren’t trying to be).
I wholly believe that the majority of Twitter users have no interest in federated platforms as alternatives. By comparison, platforms like Mastodon feel vaguely like Twitter but more fractured and isolated. Everyone was on Twitter. Comparatively no one is on Mastodon. Discovery is awful and micromanaging instances and subscriptions is tedious busywork. “Why can’t it just be all in one convenient place, like on Twitter? This is so stupid and complicated,” I expect most would complain.
Federated platforms are loved by us because we value the fine control and we like putting in effort to curate our feeds. The complexity is the appeal. But I think it’s negative appeal to the type of person who has gotten accustomed to an algorithm doing all of that for them, and I think that’s most people. You can use federated platforms out of the box and they’ll “just work” without all the tinkering, but it will be very bland and vapid. It only becomes great when you put in work to make it great for yourself.
The thing BlueSky seems to be promising is that big, monolithic platform that Twitter was and most people want. And I think they’re the only notable player in that game, so they’ll completely corner that market. As long as they don’t trip over any footguns (and I don’t believe making the beta invite-only is one of them), I believe they’re going to succeed greatly.