Anyone handing out Bluesky invite codes?
I have a couple left but I'm gatekeeping them pretty hard since I only want to invite people I think are cool.
Hello best friend, you think I’m pretty cool right? That’s great because I’d love an invite :)
Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
141–150 of 223 posts
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#142Did they start fighting scrapers, too? I cannot see the contents of the link it asks me to log in.
By LinkedIn vs. HiQ -- if two things are both true then scraping is illegal:
1) The ToS has clauses in it against scraping
2) There is a login wall that enforces agreeing to the ToS before seeing any content.
#2 is true for now, I can't verify #1.
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#143What's funny is that while Twitter wants you to log in and goes at great length to prevent you from reading anything when not logged in, the situation is exactly the other way round with Bluesky. They limit who can sign in, but openly publish all data via their API. So one could use an AT protocol client to read, or a web based client like this one: https://firesky.tv/ I just made an account, let's see how this thing…
That is because Twitter’s network produces content which currently has monetary value, while bsky currently has nothing and will run the loss-leader game of converting VC cash into network (which will someday produce value) for as long as they can. It baffles me that this pattern is not better understood in this crowd.
What is the value of the social network other than the network and the interactions it enables? I think there is a fundamental disconnect here that people keep glossing over because abstractly it seems like there must be some way to convert social networks into economic engines but because all social networks are about digital content the only point between the digital and the concrete is the advertising which is the only time social media participants actually see anything connected to any real world economics.
I'm going to make a prophetic statement and say that all digital social networks in the long run limit are not sustainable. The digital content generated on them has no real economic value and probably never will because the social connections they enable are inherently not monetizable.
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#144https://bsky.app/profile/bsky.app/post/3jzihryv25y2m
"We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues. We’ll keep you updated when invite codes will resume functionality.
We’re excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!"
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is because Twitter’s network produces content which currently has monetary value, while bsky currently has nothing and will run the loss-leader game of converting VC cash into network (which will someday produce value) for as long as they can. It baffles me that this pattern is not better understood in this crowd.
What is the value of the social network other than the network and the interactions it enables? I think there is a fundamental disconnect here that people keep glossing over because abstractly it seems like there must be some way to convert social networks into economic engines but because all social networks are about digital content the only point between the digital and the concrete is the advertising which is the…
There are myriad ways that networks produce value. One immediate one is attention — if you think the ability to direct attention does not have value, I suggest you try selling anything to anyone without it.
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#146Since Bluesky is invite-only and there's a lot of clamoring for invite codes, it's easy to think that you're missing out if you're not a member. I'd like to offer a different perspective, that most HN readers would probably be happier on Mastodon than Bluesky. In particular, Bluesky is very small, has a strange vibe, and has almost no technical content or people interested in it.
The number of participants on Bluesky is small, and everyone seems to know each other. Getting even a single like on a post is an accomplishment, and getting 16 likes (I think) gets you onto What's Hot. Approximately nobody is interested in technical discussions; Mastodon is much better for that.
The vibe on Bluesky is weird. Everyone is very enthusiastic about being there, and most of the discussion is about being on Bluesky. Someone said that everyone is Extremely Online and much more interested in meta-discussion than discussion, and I'd agree. Bluesky is all about the in-jokes and memes, which turn over at a dizzying rate, much faster than even Twitter. It's a very horny place, with lots of butt photos.
I don't want to be negative about Bluesky. For people who want a tight-knit community to chat with, it's great. But don't feel like you're missing out if you don't have an invite code. (BTW, I don't have any to give out.)
Edit: I'm not hyping Mastodon here, just comparing Twitter alternatives. Unfortunately, so far I've found that Twitter is the best choice for me. I get maybe 10% of the interesting technical discussion on Mastodon that I get on Twitter. And I still don't understand how to work with the federation. There's also Newsmast, a new social app that reached out to me, but there's approximately 0 content there.
One thing I forgot to mention about Bluesky is that it looks exactly like Twitter, so much that I can forget which app I'm on. It's very different in that regard from Mastodon, which is like alternate-universe Twitter.
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like you're arguing from a hypothetically perfect view with 20/20 hindsight. Scaling problems are good problems, solvable at the right time without the evils of premature optimization. Doing work without a need is wasted effort.
> It sounds like you're arguing from a hypothetically perfect view with 20/20 hindsight. I'm just stating the obvious, which is that whether a service is centralized or federated has nothing to do with it. Mastodon would melt long before operating at Twitter scale, for example. (And to your points, I don't think that's necessarily bad.) But, if there's any company on earth that should have 20/20 hindsight about this,…
It probably would, but Mastodon is now at around 13M accounts, but with ca. 3x as many instances as when it hit 10M, so it's increasingly better prepared for large user surges.
E.g. signups have hit ~6x what they were earlier today but it's still only an average of one signup per instance per hour.
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#148Since Bluesky is invite-only and there's a lot of clamoring for invite codes, it's easy to think that you're missing out if you're not a member. I'd like to offer a different perspective, that most HN readers would probably be happier on Mastodon than Bluesky. In particular, Bluesky is very small, has a strange vibe, and has almost no technical content or people interested in it. The number of participants on Bluesky…
[flagged]
Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#149Re: Bluesky facing degraded performance due to record high traffic
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the value of the social network other than the network and the interactions it enables? I think there is a fundamental disconnect here that people keep glossing over because abstractly it seems like there must be some way to convert social networks into economic engines but because all social networks are about digital content the only point between the digital and the concrete is the advertising which is the…
There are myriad ways that networks produce value. One immediate one is attention — if you think the ability to direct attention does not have value, I suggest you try selling anything to anyone without it.
I already mentioned advertising and how it's the only real economic activity enabled by social networks. Unless Twitter enables some kind of payment processing and gives the participants the ability to actually exchange money for goods and services Twitter will continue to be an economic loss leader. Most people on social networks do not contribute to the real economy in any meaningful way.
Same logic applies to bluesky networks and servers.