this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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I think it's just discoverability of content, and probably some UX. Mastodon isn't really a great show of what ActivityPub can do. They intentionally don't have an "algorithm" or any kind of content discoverability. Also the federation is limited to following users, on Lemmy you can follow topics and that causes all their posts and comments to federate.
Just today I heard Bluesky is making a Reddit alternative. I'm a bit worried they overtake Lemmy.
Yeah discoverability is a huge issue. I feel like tech people often get stuck on the fact that most regular people don’t want to do a ton of work to browse the web, they just want content to come to them. I know people in the fediverse have negative feelings about algorithms (and most that exist today are harmful) but does a transparent, community-managed algorithm have to be a bad thing?
Yea the Mastodon devs are seriously underestimating how lazy the average person is lol
I think this is also true for why people gravitate towards places like Bluesky in more general terms as well. Without even getting into the details of whether or not a platform has an algorithm or whatever other features, whether or not a platform is federated means nothing to the average person and the benefits of the decentralized servers are a disadvantage to onboarding people. When the Reddit exodus happened, I was describing Lemmy to a friend, and when I told him that anybody could spin up their own instance, his response was "why the hell would anybody want to do that." And this is a guy who ran his own TeamSpeak server for like 20 years.
People don't want an alternative to Twitter - they want Twitter without the rightwing extremism. Bluesky offers exactly this with an easy and straightforward onboarding process and a familiar UI. There's even browser extensions to search the people you follow on Twitter and find their Bluesky handles to make the swap easier.
I've also seen people praising Bluesky's algorithm being entirely optional as well as a plus for discoverability. People really like the chronological timeline that doesn't bury posts - especially artists. I haven't used Mastodon, and I only used Twitter because all the artists jumped ship after Tumblr banned the porn, but I can say that I have enjoyed how Bluesky works similar to Tumblr in that regard. I've never liked algorithmic based feeds, so a chronological feed of the people I follow and the stuff they reblog from other people who I can then go check out as well is exactly the kind of experience I want out of a platform.
Language is so silly sometimes
Bluesky is not making a reddit alternative, a third party developer is using their hosting/auth infrastructure.
https://bsky.app/profile/frontpage.fyi
https://github.com/likeandscribe/frontpage
It’s not BlueSky making the Reddit alternative, it’s third party devs. There are a few alternative apps being built on BlueSky architecture and ATProto right now.
And yea, it definitely could overtake and harm lemmy, if there are people here into the BlueSky approach (which likely suits Reddit-like apps, I think I’ve seen some say BlueSky has a Reddit flavour to it).
Honestly, given the dominance Mastodon has in AP and the shitty interop it has with lemmy, migrating to ATProto wouldn’t be the most insane idea for Lemmy IMO. Relying on BlurSky’s relay wouldn’t be for everyone. But some sort of multi-relay set up seems plausible and might be cool to see.
Drag agrees. Drag has fiddled with Lemmy's API, and there's so much redundant and unnecessary information on every post. No wonder it's such a resource hog. If that redundancy is part of ActivityPub, then drag would be happy to dumb AP for a lighter protocol.
I'm kind of surprised I don't see Calckey or similar mentioned more. Personally I think it has solved a lot of Mastodon's problems, but it seems niche even within the niche that is the fediverse.
https://calckey.world/
Unfortunately I feel like people have stopped looking for a Twitter alternative already
It should surprise no one that bluesky is able to leverage the socioeconomic status and wealth of its investors and founders to easily outpace the fediverse... which is a patchwork community construction maintained and developed on several orders of magnitude less capital..
so what?
The fediverse isn't of the same "type" as a for-profit corporate social network, it doesn't need to grow virally and produce ever growing profits to maintain legitimacy in the eyes of the people who maintain and provide foundation for the fediverse.
What's the point in them making a reddit alternative when they can just spin up their own Lemmy instances? That seems pointless.
You could say the same thing about why they made Bluesky when Mastodon exists
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