Hey, I wanted to ask someone who has probably more knowledge than me about it - what’s the difference about these two services? I know Mastodon has ActivityPub, so it works with Lemmy, and BlueSky has it’s own kind of federation, but does it even has anything to federate to?
I’m asking not which one is better, I’m searching logical argument for one or other. I’m obviously more leaning toward Mastodon since I’m here, but I wanted to give my friend, who is thinking about joining, some real arguments.
Blue sky is for people who want something that works. Mastodon is for people who think they know how to make it work.
TL/DR Mastodon server admins have a great amount of control on who you can follow. Searches may not find everyone due to defederation. Bluesky puts the control for this in the users’ hands with more robust search and moderation tools.
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Bluesky is growing as is Threads. I’ve read several articles over the past week and not one stated Mastodon is gaining users.
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I’ve been on Mastodon for a couple of years and, for me, it’s so boring. Been on Bluesky for about a week. I currently have more followers and am following more than I ever did on Mastodon.
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Mastodon was setup with the idea of users would use hashtags to find people to follow but I’ve noticed half the posts have no hashtags. I’ve also seen a lot of hashtag abuse to reach a wider audience - hashtags being added to a post that has nothing to do with the topic. An example is #privacy being added to a painting of a beach.
There are followlists (called Starter Packs) for different topics and occupations. Lawyers, teachers, privacy enthusiasts (me), AI reachers, anyone really can find a group of people to follow that share your interests. These are created by users, not the company.
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With Mastodon being federated if you block someone and they move to another server, you need to block them again. This isn’t good for someone being abused by a stalker.
They don’t mess around with blocking trolls “Don’t feed the trolls” could be the site motto.
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You could be on a server that gets defederated or have someone blocked from your searches by the owner of your server. This will limit who you can follow.
Bluesky puts this control back in your hands. There are blocklists to make it easier to remove the maga, nazis, rightwingers, cryptobros, etc from your sight. Moderation tools are far easier to use. Muting of hashtags can be done from the Discover timeline.
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Bluesky is very left leaning which I’m not sure I like. An example, the other day there was a thread about using blocklists and a user said they are silly because you have to trust the creator of that list. Another user said talk like that will get you blocked, many people agreed with the second user. That culture worries me. BTW I agree with the first user.
I’ve been on Mastodon for a couple of years and, for me, it’s so boring. Been on Bluesky for about a week. I currently have more followers and am following more than I ever did on Mastodon.
To me, that’s an argument for Mastodon.
The difference is one is where people will continue going, the other is where people will continue crying because people won’t go.
Bluesky is the first app built on the ATProtocol, its protocol for federation, sort of like how Mastodon was among the first to use ActivityPub after the overcomplexity of OStatus. The ATProtocol is a few years younger than ActivityPub, so its landscape isn’t fleshed out yet. Currently Bluesky caters more towards creators, artists, and social togetherness, whereas ActivityPub tends to lean harder into attracting techies. Both protocols can be run as independent instances, but most people are still using bsky.social for now until more instances pop up and federate together. The process for hosting a Bluesky instance is still undergoing development, but all features of it have been opened up. There exist multiple bridge systems that can interweave ActivityPub with ATProto.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds
https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/entries/Notes on Running a Full-Network atproto Relay (July 2024)
Bluesky isn’t federated (another privately owned monolith that’s promised it’s coming Soon™) and recently got funding from a company with “blockchain” in its name (and there’s already rumors that despite claims otherwise, ads will be showing up in the next year or so)
that being said, Bluesky does offer much better blocking, muting, and moderation options than Mastodon (Mastodon devs have been digging in their heels) as well as better on-boarding and curated follow lists
Search and discovery are a big deal. It’s much less effort to find people and content, and to be found on Bluesky than on Mastodon/ActivityPub. It takes work on Mastodon, and I don’t think Pleroma, Misskey, and their forks are doing much better (though I believe Akkoma has a decent search function).
This is, in part because there is a very vocal contingent of ActivityPub users who do not want working search and discovery. I think that’s equivalent to saying they don’t want the network to gain mainstream popularity.
It does look like it’s possible to independently host all the components of the ATProto network now, so I’m hoping we’ll see a bunch of services pop up soon such that the network becomes more resistant to enshittification. I’ve seen Whitewind and Frontpage, but I don’t fully understand the federation model and haven’t been able to cause one to display posts from another.
Bluesky is easy on the beginner and mimics X as a whole world in your single feed. Mastodon (fediverse) carry way to much technical concepts to understand and get the most out of it.
What do you need to understand about the technical concepts? Join an instance (mastodon.social if you have no reason to select another one), post and follow.
That’s where the first question woul pop up. Which instance to choose? What to consider when choosing? That’s where the first less technically inclined will already abort.
That question would start a very long post. Let’s keep it simple:
- you may never find your communities again (hashtag ? what is that ? why should I hashtag to make it searchable and make it stick…)
- your posts may never reach your friends, or general audience (defederation, admin instance ban…)
- the global timeline is not a global timeline as in X or Bsky, or Insta or any other social media, just what your instance admin and federation relatations “agreed” to show you …
Why do you need to understand any of that? Now, none of it is wrong - but it’s not something anyone signing up at a Mastodon instance absolute must know about to use the system and have a good troll-free social network experience.
On the contrary. Maybe those are exactly the things needed to avoid becoming Xitter. Bluesky is rapidly becoming another instance of the hellhole at this very moment.
I agree on the unfortunate and predictable bluesky’s future. Corporate, politics, ads… Avoiding to become “Xitter” should not rely on end users computer knowledge, technical abilities, geeky mindset. I think you understand that too: KISS is a huge success factor. That’s just my 2cts.
I’ve been waiting for everyone around me to “understand computers” for forty years.
No luck. They’re just as clueless as they have ever been.
You’d think I’d be less boggled by it now, but nope.
Bluesky is the enshitification continuing. Sort of Mastodon on a single, godlike instance which they control…
Bluesky is cool and trendy. Mastodon isn’t.
Damn. I knew I belonged on Mastodon but you didn’t have to be so blunt about it…
To be fair, Bluesky has been a really good and positive experience for me so far. And I’ve used Mastodon and Twitter.
Mastodon has more pedophiles, idk something like that
