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.
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
What is HOA?
Home Owners Association a group or people that “polices” neighbors and has a hisyory of doing shady things. But he’s referring to the actitude of “coming outta nowhere to tell you what to do” they have in common.
What S_H_K said, people have reported being rebuked for posting pictures without ALT-text and not CW-ing uncommon things like eye-contact or food, for example. One person notably received angry messages for posting about cutting their finger on a sheet of paper without CW. The worst accounts were of POC talking about racism they experienced and being told to put it under CW.
Yeah, turns out weird, hostile, anti-social nerds are weird, hostile, and anti-social, and they probably ruined our best shot at freeing the web from VC backed corporate control of communication.
Personally, I’m excited there’s a decentralized option that’s super popular. Yes, relatively very few run their own PDS, but if the main bsky instance becomes a problem for anyone, people can easily migrate.
It’s not just data ownership either; The AT protocol supports community-built algorithms, relays, and app views.
I wouldn’t say it’s truly decentralised in its current state.
The whole thing’s just a scam to off-load data storage costs to super-users. It’s sad that people are excited about it.
Because it pretends to be different to the centralised corporate social media platforms
Best answer yet IMO. The cohesive experience is essential to the branding, and low threshold for entry.
You have to understand we are not normal users. Anyone even remotely interested in federated software are not normal users.
Bluesky may not have 57 third party apps and that’s why people are flocking to it. It’s easy. The signup process through the app involved no selecting of servers, no understanding of what it actually is under the hood, and users are greeted by a default algorithm that feels very much like old Twitter before Musk.
Basically, regular users do not care about the fediverse and just want a competent and polished app and site experience.
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.
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)
I’ve got an idea as to why.
I went to mastodon.social and see a Linux meme, some heavy political commentary, and a bunch of posts about mastodon being better than Twitter.
I then went to bluesky.app and see some political riffing, cute animals, a comic, some jokes, a company, and even Don Lemon.
The average person checking them both out for the first time, mastodon is nerd shit and Bluesky is normal shit.
I’ve tried to stick with mastodon for a while and after using it for months, your description of checking it out is STILL what my feeds look like. That’s all there seems to be on Mastodon.
Feels like deciding in 2010 between Twitter and Reddit in some ways…
Because centralized services are easier to use.
This exactly. I didn’t join Lemmy for a long time, because I would search for “Lemmy”, get confused when I see a page asking me to “pick an instance” instead of seeing a front page, and then leave because I thought that they were all independent from each other.
It wasn’t until reddit killed my favorite app that I finally decided to put in the effort to figure it out.
I’m running my own PDS on the AT Protocol 🤷♂️
Bluesky allows me to use my domain as my identity and make my own moderation decisions without having to run my own instance.
I was really impressed by this feature when I signed up recently! It baffles me a little bit to see newspapers and things not taking advantage of it.
Theverge and washingtompost are
Average users do not even remotely care about federated software and/or decentralisation. That is techno-babble to them and their eyes will glaze over if you try to market that to them.
That being said: Mastodon does a shit job at explaining how it works, how to use it, and what its advantages are. The Joinmastodon landing page just assumes you already know how a fair bit about instances work and what federated software is and does a very poor job explaining it. And even then, most users won’t care either way. They just want to click a Join button and be done.
That’s exactly what drove me into seeking out Lemmy instead. I hopped on Mastodon and it made me feel like I was being coralled into following some niche hobby forum exclusively, and I wasn’t into that. It didn’t explain that the instance itself was largely irrelevant and that the rest of the platform would open up to me after choosing one.
Lemmy still had a learning curve, but having experience with reddit I was able to pick it up easily enough.
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 been better marketed, and people struggle with the concept of federation and picking a server. and I guess the invite-only, artificial exclusivity strat has actually paid off for them initially, unlike for Google+.
also, a matter of culture. I’ve seen many newcomers complain about how some long time users act as HOA, reminding everyone to act according to the long-standing rules. many people of colour have experience many forms of racist behaviour, too, which has driven some communities away.
oh, and the federation/defederation business sometimes gets way too messy, which [cynic mode on] makes it difficult for people who want their Personal Brand™ to gain as many followers as possible over the entire network.
people struggle with the concept of federation and picking a server
This is a HUGE reason. I didn’t know when I first signed up for Lemmy that I was on what is essentially a tankie instance. I didn’t know when I signed up for Pixelfed that I wasn’t going to be able to see shit because the first server I signed up for wasn’t really federated with anyone and I’ve mostly given up on it. I still can’t see a bunch of stuff on Mastodon without switching through several accounts with no rhyme or reason.
I’ve said before that I obviously like it here because I’m using the services, but it’s not easy. Most people don’t know about the fediverse, and most of those that do want to be passive about maintaining their social media. Most of the fediverse is built for nerds.
Language filter in bluesky is much better than Mastodon as well
Mastodon relies on users setting the language their post is in manually, so if someone posts in two languages and forgets to switch between them, they don’t get filtered out. I know there are some other pieces of software that switch it automatically, I’m fairly sure Calckey automatically recognized the language you were writing in.
I already toggle the Mastodon settings to ensure that I got the feeds to the language I want (I want English only) and I still got feeds on different languages such as German and French
again, if the person who is making the post doesn’t change the setting, it won’t get filtered. if they type a message in German but the post’s language option is set to English (which I think is the default on some major instances), it won’t get filtered out.
you can usually check what their post’s setting is by starting writing a reply to them, as the language option of your post will switch to the one they post in.
That is why Mastodon is hard to get mainstream because not everyone wants extra effort to do this. Even, Twitter, threads and bluesky much better to filter their language content
I mute a few more non-English accounts each time I use Mastodon
Because none of those points matter to the average user.
It has an algorithm that puts content in front of you, unlike Mastodon where it only puts what you ask for in your feed. I’m convinced that if Mastodon populated people with low following count’s feed with random posts it wouldn’t have bled as many users as it did.
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.
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.
