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Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

chrisholdgraf.com

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Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#151

Post by the__alchemist »

I'm worried about the issues in the article (They are likely an inevitable consequence of the funding model). For now, I'm loving it! I didn't have Twitter or X. I'm using it to follow various science and engineering feeds. It's fantastic, and the people are friendly; some of the highest quality discussion (but short) I've found online. (Not to HN's level though! )

To make Discover useful, I recommend aggressively muting or blocking bottomfeeder political content. If someone is only posting tribal or identity politics, block. I bring this up, as I think it would resolve a subset of the complaints I've seen in this thread and elsewhere.

I wish you could have all your feeds combined, but this appears not to be possible.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#153

Post by bdangubic »

ziml77 wrote: post #143
Gigachad wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, maybe for a fresh account today. I just checked and my discover feed is pretty much just art and photography.

Maybe Bluesky needs to ask a few questions the first time a new user looks at the discover feed to prime it for them. Personally I'd prefer if there was no default algorithmic feed but I know that just doesn't work. People will create an account, see nothing in their feed, and leave because the site seems dead or because they can't even fathom how to get started finding people to follow or custom feeds to add.

they do - they ask… the “problem” is that it is too broad… I picked “science” and there were myriad of post with pictures of various galaxies… pretty but after you see 27 of them…

with the new accounts it is also asking to like 10 posts and follow 7 accounts so that it can try to figure shit out. it can be trained for sure but when I first joined to try it out it was just politics - mostly left-leaning praising Dr Fauci (very confusing) and stuff like that. I don’t use social media - no X, Facebook, Insta, TikTok… all were tried but eventually discarded … bluesky will suffer the same faith :)

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#154

Post by IshKebab »

simonw wrote: post #120
grumbel wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon isn't true decentralization to begin with, it's just federation like email, where every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none. I find that approach a waste of time, as it's just replicating past mistakes verbatim. On top of that, the whole Fediverse is extremely political. Email providers don't care much what you write or with whom you communicate…

"every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none" So run your own server.

Do you run your own email server?

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#155

Post by eichin »

Zak wrote: post #106
Klonoar wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical folks might. Non-technical folks fall for this kind of thing in phishing attempts often enough that I can see the confusing complaint having some merit.

It's a bit different when someone is being intentionally deceptive. None of the major social platforms or protocols guard effectively against someone making a deceptively similar username to impersonate someone. I bet the vast majority of non-technical people who use email would correctly answer that the two email addresses might belong to different people if asked. That doesn't mean they'll be checking closely while…

It looks like bluesky only just figured out (in the last couple of weeks, I think?) that even if you authenticate foo.example.com they need to keep foo.bsky.social reserved, because otherwise they immediately get snapped up for impersonation. So, yeah, possible and already happening, but at least they're trying to mitigate the worst case of it.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#156

Post by robertlagrant »

swed420 wrote: post #146
robertlagrant wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a category error. Topics that have political aspects, e.g. environmentalism, also have non-political aspects. Also, it just seems like an excuse for mob mentality. It's "if you're not for us you're against us" with extra steps.

Being politically conscious instead of proudly checking out to the Soma drip feed of sanitized media is not mob mentality. Though, the minority holders of the majority of capital would very much like people to parrot such nonsense.

"If you're not with us you're against us" is the basest way to be politically conscious, not the only way.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#157

Post by BlueTemplar »

brightball wrote: post #34
emseetech wrote: post #7

When Bluesky announced they were taking on large amounts of capital to handle the growth that's when I knew their days were numbered. Capital requires returns, and a lot of the degradation of the user experience in the past few years is due to catering to investors and advertisers (who are the actual customers). Decentralization as is promised is one way to mitigate this, but there's no economic incentive to go throu…

IMO Mastodon is the only real place for a truly decentralized option. BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. It has a future, but the branding in very tainted.

Isn't Truth Social a fork of Mastodon (that might or might not be compatible any more).

Or am I confusing with Gab ?

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#158

Post by jrmg »

dsr_ wrote: post #16

>“you’re telling me there’s a @choldgraf@hachyderm.io and a @choldgraf@mastodon.social and they’re two different people?!” Yes, and choldgraf@gmail.com and choldgraf@ibm.com are different email-people, too. This is not a hard concept.

I think people underestimate just how much “weird techiness” having two ‘@‘ signs creates. It’s (whether it ‘should’ be or not) immediately unapproachable.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#159

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

jeroenhd wrote: post #108
dsr_ wrote: post #16

>“you’re telling me there’s a @choldgraf@hachyderm.io and a @choldgraf@mastodon.social and they’re two different people?!” Yes, and choldgraf@gmail.com and choldgraf@ibm.com are different email-people, too. This is not a hard concept.

You'll be surprised how many people think they can just use first.lastname@gmail.com and have email magically appear in their account. And even more people have no idea what the @gmail.com/@ibm.com is about. All they know is that some of their emails don't reach their contacts, probably because "the computer broke again". It's not a hard concept, but it's a concept that was only ever explained in school to a sliver o…

> You'll be surprised how many people think they can just use first.lastname@gmail.com and have email magically appear in their account.

Since I like surprises, do tell ... how many people think that?

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#160

Post by toss1 »

brightball wrote: post #34
emseetech wrote: post #7

When Bluesky announced they were taking on large amounts of capital to handle the growth that's when I knew their days were numbered. Capital requires returns, and a lot of the degradation of the user experience in the past few years is due to catering to investors and advertisers (who are the actual customers). Decentralization as is promised is one way to mitigate this, but there's no economic incentive to go throu…

IMO Mastodon is the only real place for a truly decentralized option. BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. It has a future, but the branding in very tainted.

And that 'truly decentralized option' comes with a problem that will permanently dissuade many serious people from using it — there is no way to prevent imposter accounts.

Imposter accounts will be attempted for anyone of significant standing or authority posting anything authoritative (e.g., product or policy announcements) controversial or notable, and with no way to shut them down and maintain an authoritative presence of you, no one of note will even go there, or stay once they encounter the problem. Easier to stay somewhere else like Bluesky or Spoutible where they at least attempt moderation and authentication and declare "Any Mastodon accts purporting to be me are fake.".

I've personally spoken to authors/speakers/officials who checked it out after Twitter was sold to Musk, and once they understood the no-authentication-in-principle problem, said "NFW".

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