this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Why is there this very loud chorus of people touting bluesky as alternative to twitter instead of the far superior Mastodon?
Bluesky you are basically swapping a tyrant against a benevolent dictator, that dictator can become corrupted or sell bluesky to Musk Elon later on.... That is not a solution that is more like procrastination.
Is this actually true? The UIs don't seem very different to me. What is it about mastodon's design that's bad?
Just the UX rather than the UI. It’s also missing some features like quote tweets. But it can be confusing to onboard either your own instance and know that your discoverable or to join an instance and know how discoverable you are.
Like I am a career man in IT, servers, and networking. I have no idea if I were to run my own instance, who exactly on the network would be able to see my public posts
I think the lack of quote tweets is a feature and not a bug. They facilitate a lot of antisocial behavior on other microblogging sites as I recall.
I think Mastodon changed their mind about it due to user feedback, and "Quote Posts" is on the current Mastodon roadmap. Not sure when it will be added - maybe sometime in 2025?
https://joinmastodon.org/roadmap
Oh dang. I'm sure users wanted it, but it's too effective as a mobbing tool. I don't think it'll help the protocol.
Anyone who is on a server that houses any other user that follows you. Not that hard to find out..
But also I don't really see how that matters in practice for most pleb users, since 95% or them will join a large server, which means the practical answer is "nearly everyone on the fediverse, if they want to".
That part I understand, but how can I get those first followers? And if I am just going to join the flagship instance, why wouldn’t I just join bluesky since it has more users.
Just trying to give a reason why people might shun mastodon for blue sky, this isn’t supposed to be a real argument against Mastodon. I’m on it and love it
Follow people and hashtags and interact with them and you'll get followers. I barely post, just a few replies a day, and I have over 800 followers. I have a pinned post on my account to that effect.
I would join mastodon over bluesky because bluesky seems to be on the same mesh it to fixation trajectory as any other VC backed social network. But yeah, I get that most people won't see that for another couple of years... Oh well. At least people are bailing twitter. And when bluesky goes to shit mastodon will still be there, and the rationale should be a lot clearer.
An app I use for Mastodon (Called Mona) allows quote toots.
Thats a good example of the UX issues, when only 1 specific app supports a feature.
As someone who had never used corporate social media like FB and Twitter (for my own reasons), when I found out about Mastodon back in 2017-18, I decided to join it because of its philosophy and it not being a corporate-owned walled garden. It has its flaws of course. But since I didn't have any preconceptions, I mostly liked Mastodon as it was and didn't find it confusing at all. That's probably because I read up on Mastodon first to decide whether I'd want to try it, so I knew what to expect.
So I can understand how people who had been using Twitter and had their expectations shaped by it would assume that Mastodon was just a Twitter clone, not having learned anything about it beforehand. That's why they were confused and disappointed to find that it was its own thing with its own philosophy, and had existing communities aligned with that philosophy.
Some (not all) of those who saw the differences as flaws, complained that Mastodon was crap for not having certain Twitter features, and some (not all) existing communities didn't take kindly to demands that Mastodon abandon its philosophy and transform itself into a Twitter clone, so there were conflicts as well, and those new people didn't stick around.
OTOH, many other new people found that they liked the different philosophy and those people did stick around, so Mastodon has grown. But IMO since most people like the Twitter-style algorithms and "broadcast/consume" culture (as opposed to Mastodon's more personal interaction culture), Mastodon will always be a much smaller thing. But its existence is an important and good thing, like the quiet room away from the riotous street party, where you can hear each other speak.
I also joined around 2017, but I was using twitter beforehand. Totally agree with everything you've said.
I do think that mastodon could benefit from some simple, transparent/open algos (not black box ad-focused ones), such as the ability to sort replies based on favourites, and a per-hashtag recently popular view. Some of those are already requested and maybe on the cards.
Nightmare is massively overstating it. Mastodon's UI/UX is neither a nightmare nor difficult to use. People who say this stuff leave me scratching my head.
In my view, the only legitimate criticism of Mastodon is about the lack of an algorithm that's constantly bubbling content to the top, but that's a valid design choice that many people prefer over the toxic algos over at X/Twitter.
"Why can't the algo find me better content?"
Motherfucker, it's social media. You have to get social with people. Make a fucking friend, right?
Like, I fixed that shit by following George Takei and Mark Hamill and some reporters. The algo shouldn't be finding things for you. You should be finding people.
Yeah, scratching my head just the same. My only problem with Mastodon is the same I had with StumbleUpon. It's way too good about putting neat people and conversations in front of me and I feel bad not rising to the occasion more when I just want to deadbrain.
Following hashtags is also a great way to find content you're interested in.
Bluesky has the USP of people being able to choose from multiple algorithms or even use multiple ones at the same time; and that certainly has resonated with a lot of people.
Mastodon has an early days of Twitter feel to it.
I think it is because Bluesky is simpler and easier to understand, as well as more familiar to use than mastodon. My favorite streamer said he is reluctant to move to the fediverse because of how different it is and the learning curve it has to it. I'm also, like, EXTREMELY new here and understand but once you start to get used to it, its easy to see how the fediverse and this "New Social" wave is far superior; the only hard part is getting "normies" to try it long enough to build enough familiarity to see that.
Is it just the choosing-a-home-server thing, or something else?
That and finding relevant things or anything at all sometimes; also I hear that people want to see everything like a friendica environment but don't like the differences from the social medias they know already. I'm not sure if it is all valid or relevant because I am extremely new to the fediverse in general myself.
Mastodon could definitely do with some more discovery methods. Hopefully something like bluesky's starter packs get implemented eventually (but I understand why they aren't rushing it, there are abuse risks).
Best approach for now on mastodon is to follow all the hash tags you're interested in, and then follow everyone in your feed who posts anything interesting. Takes a few weeks to ramp up, I guess. My feed got good once I was following around 1k users. You can always unfollow if someone's annoying.
It's absolutely insane to hear that a streamer, of all types of people, said there's a learning curve to it. Twitch is/was bewildering to me, just as a user, much less a streamer who would need to learn to configure and use OBS, etc. SMH.
bluesky has more funding for self-promotion.
Because Bluesky has a marketing budget.
"We need to get away from these billionaire-ran social media sites! Ooh, a new billionaire-ran social media site!"
Same with the people who fled reddit and set their communities up on Discord...
It has more features, and most people don't know why Mastadon might be better. The average person doesn't even know what a server is.
Mastodon has far more features. What it doesn’t have is centralization.
What features?
Lots of little things that add up. Some of the better include temporary muting, hashtags, and hashtag subscriptions. Plus it is resilient with no single point of failure.
I'm pretty sure Bluesky has hashtags. Subscribing to a hashtag and muting someone temporarily is nice. I think the main feature Mastadon is missing is discovery algorithms. Most people use that heavily on social media, whether they admit they value it or not.
What is this, then? It’s on the front page of a Mastodon server before you log in and afterwards the discovery section with posts, hashtags, people etc. is on the search page after login. Bluesky was far harder to get a decent feed going on till people started building lists (and those are pretty flawed in that you only follow the individuals - not the list - so it doesn’t update for subscribers).
Oh cool, I didn't realize they added that. I tried Mastadon a while ago and couldn't find anything interesting. I don't use any micro blogging apps.
Someone (probably bluesky) almost definitely spent a large sum of money on marketing/astroturfing for Bluesky
What makes you assume Mastodon is superior as a solution for the people who are flocking to Bluesky in droves?
Considering the people pushing bluesky are the same ones usually praising government surveillance, I don’t trust it for one second. Smells like a psyop honeypot.
Bluesky has jack dorsey, Twitter founder, in its DNA. Dorsey cheered musk on and they call each other friends. Bluesky is not the win people want it to be, it's just a bandaid for your conscience with the same infected wound under the surface.
You can't pry people away from their AI algorithms
It just feels more like Classic Twitter, and I can imagine some users like that vibe, despite Mastodon perhaps having the better technicals to keep social media federated. I use both and they have their audience. There are services that allow crossposting too, so I've got a BlueSky instance out there copying my Mastodon into that feed. Just to reach out.