Yup, I’m calling it.
bsky will prevail where Mastodon failed. The recent migration triggered the critical mass of Chaos Muppet Energy that Masto’s culture works so hard to extinguish
Like a climactic moment in a Zelda game where the accumulation of artifacts and switches pulled channels mystical energy.
I will see you over there!
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •What threw it over the top for me was catching wind of a developing news event in real time—the Nazi party at MSG
with the blend of straight facts, analysis and jokes we used to get from Twitter
A range of voices broad enough there to really deliver. How exciting
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •update two weeks later:
Yup. Bsky is where it’s at. It feels like Twitter used to feel, the vibes are positive, the voices are diverse, it’s easy to get the kind of content you need
Moreover, the product quality gap compared to Masto is yawning ever wider, with user-made feed algorithms, block lists, and starter packs
Whatever advantages Masto had from its early lead are exhausted, and as it relates to time and attention, I will not be betting on its success
hachyderm.io/@danilo/113367189…
bsky: @daniloc.xyz (@danilo@hachyderm.io)
Hachyderm.iobsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •I do hope you will consider joining bluesky, as not all of my favorites have made the migration yet
If you abandoned it previously, as I did, give it another look. Journalists and scientists in particular are moving over, providing an insightful foundation for discussion and enriching the quality of feeds
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •My favorite anecdote on the superiority of its product design culture:
For years Masto has avoided quote posts, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth in a conversation that goes in circles, to the detriment of making things people want
Bsky shipped a thing where you can just detach yourself from any quoting post you feel is acting in bad faith, or otherwise brings you attention you don’t want
Sorry, man, they got the juice
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •Again, the juice.
Bsky is the number one free iOS app in the US right now.
Mastodon is the 184th most popular app in the social media chart. Here are some apps that rank ahead of Mastodon on that chart:
- Pengu, Virtual AI Pets, #20
- Plenty of Fish, the fifth tier dating app, #29
- Skype, #33
- Letterboxd, #38
- Potato Chat, #48
- BeReal, #55
- Yik Yak, #59
- 3Fun, for arranging group sex, #92
- Fizz (???), #95
- Ubisoft Connect, #162
Masto’s leadership fucked the dog here.
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •Reasonable people can disagree about the growth and funding strategies for a social media platform.
But Mastodon being less popular than a superfluous companion app for a game publisher no one likes is just poor stewardship.
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •tired: bluesky will be enshittified by financial incentives
wired: mastodon is already enshittified by poor management
inspired: bsky is adding a million users a day and now tops the Android list as well
User-built algorithms, a chronological timeline, a great blend of safety and product features
Plus a much more diverse slate of conversation topics and contributors
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •Bluesky now growing at a rate of 12-13 users per second
So why am I beating this drum?
Mastodon’s failure to capture Twitter’s collapse is instructive as a once-in-a-generation cautionary tale
Product design matters, protocol ideology is not enough, and disliking capitalism is not an exemption from economics
You will read a lot of copium about the fediverse still being viable, but it is now the smaller development target. That has consequences.
bcounter.nat.vg
Bcounter
bcounter.nat.vgbsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •And I think the short version is this:
A professional team of 20 people, fully funded and paid a proper full-time wage, is an objectively more effective approach to building the future than one grumpy bottleneck guy making $60k a year and a bunch of other people looking on with wishful thinking
Disliking venture capital is NOT ENOUGH. You have to figure out a different model that still can fund enough deep, sustained, collaborative work to build a thing people want
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •This is the mastodon energy in a nutshell, yup
“Love this crummy platform or get lost” is exactly how this happened
The final nail in the coffin here will be the culture.
freeradical.zone/@alltherum/11…
What's it to you?
2024-11-15 20:16:23
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •But I think the thing that REALLY sticks in my craw is:
- Elon Musk is fundamentally an evil figure who must be stopped
and
- I don’t WANT to defeat Twitter
are mutually incompatible positions. If the place is really that bad it must be destroyed. And the way you do that is by displacing it in its niche
Building the Twitter killer is a moral imperative.
Instead the dominant Masto vibe is “Elon is terrible therefore let’s build a culturally marginal alternative with bad financials”
bsky: @daniloc.xyz
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •This is kind of a microcosm of Masto Brain:
Bluesky has optimized safety and social features first ahead of client performance—eg reply gating, blocks that completely deny trolls access to your post’s audience, starter packs to bootstrap your social graph
while deferring client performance
An exercise for the reader to project whether Masto successfully applies these platform fundamentals before Bluesky invests in the nuts and bolts of client performance
toot.cafe/@slightlyoff/1134923…
Alex Russell (@slightlyoff@toot.cafe)
Toot CaféWhat's it to you?
in reply to bsky: @daniloc.xyz • • •you sound like an investor.
*sees you have a pinned toot pimping AI*
Yeah, you've definitely made the right choice in leaving.