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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

#201

Post by loeg »

asadotzler wrote: post #142
loeg wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Threads sucks because it's empty. Bluesky appears to be an extremely online leftist enclave (which might be valuable to extemely online lefists, but is less appealing to the rest of us). Twitter... remains the king? It has its issues but lack of poasters and a broad spectrum of opinions aren't among them. These services aren't bad because they're commercial enterprises.

The broad set of perspectives is "H-1B visas are great because it lets us exploit workers" vs "H-1B visas are terrible because I'm a racist." Read trending tweets and you'll see no different. Some diversity they got there.

No, those aren't the only viewpoints on the site. Twitter's got leftists, rightists, uninformed randos, journalists, shitposters, everything. Skip "trending," for sure, but the algorithm is pretty good at giving you what you want to see.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#202

Post by Karrot_Kream »

emseetech wrote: post #197
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like there's a lot of appealing to prevailing HN sentiment in this post. So much so that there's little substance. What actual things are you worried about or unhappy regarding with Bluesky? It's not perfect, and if you have problems with its decentralization posture, Christine Lemmer-Webber has a fantastic post [1] detailing her problems with the protocol. Bluesky has the AT Protocol underneath it and has inf…

| What actual things are you worried about or unhappy That it is following the same funding model that resulted in the problems we've seen. Bluesky currently doesn't generate any significant revenue. At some point they will have to in order to satisfy investors. If they were concerned about preventing the problems previous social media sites experienced, they would have sought out a different funding model. | if you…

> My other comments expand on the biggest issue which is the advertiser-optimized engagement algorithm. A site which does not cater to advertising (using an alternative source of income such as a user-driven subscription model) can instead maintain a time-based feed. This is a much better user experience. It doesn't favor negative engagement, it's less addicting, and it doesn't create artificial virality.

Thanks I probably should have read the other comments.

I haven't registered for a new Bluesky account in a while now, but when I joined there was no algorithmic feed. The "Discover" feed was added later. The default feed for me at least is still the timeline. I do occasionally glance at the "Discover" feed, but I ended up writing my own feed algorithms for my own uses that I use more often.

Though I will say, even on my purely time-based feed, ragebait always wins. People like ragebait. Today is a nazi. Tomorrow so corporations are evil. While my examples are colored by the folks I follow, I'll bet this makes up the majority of content online.

I've been trying to work on a feed that removes this kind of ragebait but it's proving real hard especially when the post is sarcastic. I'd love to connect with folks who have worked on algorithmic feeds in the past and know how to crack this problem. Right now Muted Words tend to do the trick when there's a new Villain (not always a person, sometimes an entity) of the Day on my feed, but I'd love to do this automatically.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#203

Post by wmf »

piyuv wrote: post #179
wmf wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and then experts will use ad-free alternative clients and most people won't. But it will still be better than other social media systems that ban alternative clients.

I guess then Bluesky will ban alternative clients and start charging for API, a-la Musk?

They don't need to because the normies are profitable enough.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#204

Post by aftbit »

BeetleB wrote: post #193
BodyCulture wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please give some more details about the pressure methods in mastodon you are writing about, this is very interesting and important. Is there any systematic study going on about the mechanism of censorship in the fediverse?

Things like one instance banning another whole instance because that instance is not agreeing to the same moderation policies as the first. I think some instances block all Pleroma instances, because there is an association of Pleroma being used by right wing folks. Here are failed attempts to ban Pleroma instances outright: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/11816 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues…

>mastodon.art is a safe space instance

So don't join them if you don't want to be coddled. Anyone who does wants to engage with a different slice of the fediverse, and why do you care if they don't see you?

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#205

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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.

The promise of Opera Unite was that instead of sharing with someone on Facebook, or wherever, you could invite them to peer with you via your browser. You could share messages, share files, follow blog-type posts with everything p2p.

That seemed to me like it should have been the next evolution of the net, and still seems that way. All right there in your browser (which was also a server, it United those two groups of functions) democratising the internet...

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#206

Post by preciousoo »

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.

We nerds are never going to beat the allegations, are we?

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#207

Post by Karrot_Kream »

rebeccaskinner wrote: post #194
brightball wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> BlueSky became immediately political in its narrative and many people just view it in the same light as Truth Social now. I don't see this at all. Quite the opposite in fact. From what I've seen, BlueSky is trying very hard as a company to stay apolitical in an extremely naive way that's going to ultimately drive away users. There's simply no way to to be apolitical as a general social media platform today when soc…

I think Mastodon and the Fediverse is better equipped for this kind of thing. The software itself acts like a "common carrier", and the networks formed by the instance operators align according to their politics. Truth Social itself is built on Mastodon.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#208

Post by emseetech »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #202
emseetech wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| What actual things are you worried about or unhappy That it is following the same funding model that resulted in the problems we've seen. Bluesky currently doesn't generate any significant revenue. At some point they will have to in order to satisfy investors. If they were concerned about preventing the problems previous social media sites experienced, they would have sought out a different funding model. | if you…

> My other comments expand on the biggest issue which is the advertiser-optimized engagement algorithm. A site which does not cater to advertising (using an alternative source of income such as a user-driven subscription model) can instead maintain a time-based feed. This is a much better user experience. It doesn't favor negative engagement, it's less addicting, and it doesn't create artificial virality. Thanks I pr…

| ragebait always wins. People like ragebait.

Sure but we don't need to help it along. People are gonna people, we shouldn't create machines that encourage the worst tendencies.

If Bluesky goes the advertising route (likely) they'll find just like everyone else that stoking fires is the best way to ensure engagement, which ensures eyeballs, which benefits advertisers.

My problem with ads is not the ads themselves, it's that the ads become the customer, and the users become the product being sold to the advertisers. This creates a series of perverse economic incentives that significantly shift the way the site is designed and developed.

Re: Trying to use Bluesky without getting burned again

#210

Post by Karrot_Kream »

emseetech wrote: post #208
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My other comments expand on the biggest issue which is the advertiser-optimized engagement algorithm. A site which does not cater to advertising (using an alternative source of income such as a user-driven subscription model) can instead maintain a time-based feed. This is a much better user experience. It doesn't favor negative engagement, it's less addicting, and it doesn't create artificial virality. Thanks I pr…

| ragebait always wins. People like ragebait. Sure but we don't need to help it along. People are gonna people, we shouldn't create machines that encourage the worst tendencies. If Bluesky goes the advertising route (likely) they'll find just like everyone else that stoking fires is the best way to ensure engagement, which ensures eyeballs, which benefits advertisers. My problem with ads is not the ads themselves, it…

Last I heard Bluesky was contemplating a paid app with enhanced features and also some rumors about hosted domains. They haven't ruled out ads. I'm not sure where that landed and how far along that process they are. The most I know about the situation is this interview [1] here on TechCrunch.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/05/bluesky-ceo-jay-graber-is-...

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