Technology

The brutal truth of social networks: people don’t stay for protocols, decentralization, or good intentions. They stay because everyone else is there. Building better infrastructure is impressive. Building a habit people refuse to leave is harder.

Once you know the right way out in Federated servers, there is no need to turn back to the next big corp

I gave Bluesky a shot and didn't really like it. This might have to do with how I never liked Twitter before or after the rebranding.

I do think the branding is way better than mastodon though.

I tried Bluesky before I found Lemmy. I really wanted to like it but after a few months I decided it wasn't for me. It's got a chicken-or-egg problem and you need to bring your own fanbase if want to have any interaction.

I never liked Twitter and don't feel it's a particularly good model for actual socializing. I think it was created back when people were still hacking together ideas, it sort of worked, and it hasn't changed much since.

It's great for disseminating stuff, terrible at creating space for discussion.

The founders seem like a bunch of young ultra-capitalists who sensed an opening in the market and are just shooting their shot. The app reflects this in subtle ways.

Xitter is loosing users too. So where are people going? Threads?

Or is the format becoming less relevant?

Here's the thing.

looks around

Hmmmm, yeah. That's what I thought. Everyone here is the wrong audience to really comment on this.

The reason peoples opinion here doesn't matter much is because like it or not, Lemmy is a hive mindset.

Don't like linux? Booooooo

Don't care about open source? Boooooo

Don't engage in antisocial behavior? Boooooo

And thats the audience here. It's impossible for you to comment on the mental state of the general broad population when this site seemingly collects an audience that goes out of their way to stay away from the broad general population. How could you possibly relate to someone like my brother in law, who uses Windows 11, without issue? I asked him how he can stsnd all the AI, and the spying. I was expecting an actual answer, and maybe some insight as to how to not make Windows 11 the dumpster fire that it is. Instead, he defends Windows 11 with blind faith ignorance. Insisting that there is no spying in Windows 11, and the AI is actually a good thing.

And I watched as an entire room nodded along in understanding. All agreeing with these points. I realized in that moment that there is zero conversation to be had with these people. I know for fact that Windows 11 spies on you. I know for fact that there is AI in Windows 11. It's easy to see that if left at its current rate, that AI and data centers that support AI will inevitably lead to mass water shortages.

And I'm confident that these words would land harder here on Lemmy, where I think 99% of you understand the gravity and real nature of what I'm saying.

The problem is, 99% of Lemmy's typical userbase accounts for 0.01% of the general population. This website is a bubble. Which is a shame, because I fully believe the model for Lemmys infrastructure is the cure for the problems that the general population complain about.

But it'll never be tested at scale. Most people do not give a fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck about privacy, or open source, or decentralization. Facebook knows my phone number, and has photos of me. Against my consent. And my mom who's in her 80s, who uses facebook to keep in touch with her sewing community, sees nothing wrong here.

Thats why the people here, who only support mastodon, will never understand why that stratagy won't work for the masses. And honestly, even if it did, then it wouldn't work for you.

Because twitter has something like 375 million users. When taylor swift wants to promote something, she does it on twitter. Because it's where the people are. It's also a right wing agenda platform, owned by a literal seig hailing nazi, but yet its still the default service regardless if you're left or right. It's just where the people are.

Here is what you have done. You saw an ocean. You took note of all the problems fish have in the ocean. You then designed a new concept where fish can swim in a tiny little manufactured pond. But if it gets too small, it can be scaled bigger. You removed the threats of being eaten. You've removed the fishing boats. You managed the algae. You planted seaweed so they have food. You installed everything a fish needs to have a happier healthier life from your perspective.

Except there's no water in this pond. The fediverse concentrates so hard on the advanced features that would make for a great experience.......and then forgets the basics that are needed to support life here. Social media only survives when it has an audience, just as fish only survive when they have water.

All the advanced stuff that goes unused in the fediverse means nothing without an audience. Basically if bluesky dies, the users go back to twitter.

You complain that mastodon is better. But bluesky only got popular because the general population didn't want twitter with nazis. They wanted old twitter. Bluesky is old twitter without the nazis. Thats all they wanted. But it's only got a tiny fraction of the audience twitter has. So again, taylor swift says her things on twitter. Not bluesky. Not enough people on bluesky to be considered the default. Just like the fediverse can't keep fish surviving without water, the same is true on bluesky.

The order it goes is that celebrities need to say things to hold an audience. Before the internet, that platform was tv/radio. There were also a lot less celebrities. Because tv/radio just didn't have a need to create more celebrities. But now, a celebrity can either get their message across to 375 million, or 14 million.

Celebrities go where there is an infrastructure that can handle their fame, and the audience goes where the celebrities go. Below that are us. We're not the 14 million. Lemmy has 60k and shrinking. But for us the order goes "infrastructure THEN audience". Which is never going to pull in a huge audience. It can support a large audience. Argueably better. But it'll never be tested.

I keep forgetting vluesky exists...

I still love Bluesky. Mastodon has never even got off the ground and X is the biggest shit hole on the planet. Where else am I gonna go? There is no alternative.

There is a considerable number of users that stopped using Bluesky because of the Age Verification. I think that is playing a significant issue, along with corporate accounts being few and far between compared to Twitter. I really liked how it was set up vs my Mastodon and Twitter account I keep for contests and giveaways. It is a shame they had to go fascist like that.

I really don't trust BlueSky. I feel like they call themselves federated as a marketing gimmick to convince people they're better than every other corporate social network, but they've deliberately set it up so that 99.9% of everything is going through their central server anyway. And it frustrates me that a lot of people have bought into that lie. Fediverse has been here delivering on everything BlueSky promised to be and did so long before BlueSky even existed, and yet no one cares because BlueSky had the venture capital to push a bigger marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, people jumping ship from BlueSky still aren't coming over here. So I don't know what to make of this news really, I know it doesn't mean what I wish it would mean.

I haven’t logged in in probably a year

I was just wondering about bluesky. I joined a while back but never actually used it. Than some article came out that they also are planning to monetize bluesky and that was it for me. It just never got the traction or engagement as unfortunately Twitter (which I also never used)

No one should be using corporate social networks.