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Bluesky now has 30 million users

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Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#181
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at Nostr: https://nostr.com/protocol

Nostr is definitely at effort at decentralization. In practice it doesn't have a way to incentive running a node (relay) so became quite centralized. Aside from that, it's quite a privacy nightmare (leaks ip everywhere) and became a vehicle to shill Lightning Network tokens.

Lightning uses incentives to keep nodes online, so it wouldn't be too difficult to leverage those incentives for Nostr with Zaps (earning a couple of sats per message for running a node and losing them if it goes offline for instance). However this would require a decentralized consensus system to assess node reputations.

I see no NIP for node incentives, perhaps this should be discussed further.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The users are doing the blocking, not Bluesky. We’re just slamming the door in the face of Nazis and fascists. It’s my individual right to avoid assholes. Not censorship.

That's what your mute is for. 100% support that. Bluesky preventing users from replying to your posts on your say-so. Yup, there's a word for that.

Yeah, it’s called harassment.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Sorry for you 2. Don’t almost all blocks behave that way? Twitter’s always did. Seems Elon, in his infinite social acuity, has confused “block” with “mute?” Vast majority of users want to be able to actually “block” people 3. Baby Jesus cries very easily, he’s a baby

> Don’t almost all blocks behave that way? No > Baby Jesus cries very easily, he’s a baby I've never seen official baby Jesus merch with him crying

> No

That's how Twitter's block always worked before the advent of Naughty Old Mr Car. It's also how the block on every social media thing I can think of works.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#184

And with that, I think the door on Mastodon gaining widespread adoption is closed forever. We had a very brief window when the Twitter Exodus was happening and non-techies were giving Mastodon a try. But it wasn't good enough, as far as giving the Twitter refugees what they wanted to see, and so they simply moved on to the nearest Twitter-With-The-Numbers-Filed-Off platform and stayed there instead. There's probably…

> And with that, I think the door on Mastodon gaining widespread adoption is closed forever.

Probably not _forever_; Bluesky is, at least for now, centralised enough that if Bluesky-the-entity screws up sufficiently badly, well, where else are people going to go?

But, honestly, Mastodon as _mainstream_ was always a long-shot. UX matters, and while Mastodon's is _fine_ once you're used to it, it's quite hostile to new users. Bluesky had the advantage that people already knew how to use it, because it's basically the same UX as Twitter.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#185
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a wildly successful open protocol for communication, email. People also want the advantages of centralization.

Have you tried setting up and running an email server the past decade? Email is horribly centralized. Nostr is the way. It will take time but it's sufficiently decentralized. Doesn't require DNS. Users hold their own keys. Fairly easy to run a relay. It's also a trust network, with encryption out of the box, so I think it will become a usable successor for email+GPG.

> Users hold their own keys.

This is an absolute killer for mainstream adoption. Normal people _absolutely do not want to manage keys_. And will lose them. Like, see Bitcoin; relatively enthusiast user base, and still people lose keys _all the time_.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#186
post #85

Bluesky - the Social Network where everybody posts screenshots of the awful things people post on other social networks!

Can I share my experience? I registered bluesky account for the second time last Friday and I've pick no interests during first login. Last year I had Discovery feed filled with drawn porn despite of my settings. And now on a fresh account it's mainly American politics - while setting are more liberal regarding adult content. I followed nearly 60 people but only few of them are active. The global stream overall seems…

> My partner complains he gets furry porn in Discovery while having a zero interest in that - he follows only 11 accounts.

AFAIK the 'Discover' algorithm is based largely on _likes_, not who you follow. This can result in extremely weird results for people who never like posts, which I suspect is quite a large part of the user base.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#187

The success of Bluesky has been driven, in part, by the sophistication of their system for blocking. I know this is the main thing that draws me in. There are many people who, on a volunteer basis, build block lists that I can subscribe to. I've subscribed to many of these, more than 20, to block Nazis, scammers, MAGA, crypto bots, Russian trolls, fans of Elon Musk, racists, various political causes, and more. I've b…

If you post about an opinion against female athletes competing against trans women will that put you on the Nazi list?

Nah, here: https://blueskydirectory.com/lists/a-very-british-bigotry

This one in particular is a blessing; transphobes are a particularly _tedious_ (typically just parroting whatever Rowling or similar said this week) variety of bigot, and even before Musk Twitter was swarming with them.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#188

The reason Twitter was successful is they paid celebrities and corporations to join their network. That usage seems to have waned in favor of Instagram, but Twitter is still the #1 place for breaking news, especially in the sports world. I think many people supporting bluesky assume the value is in attracting the plebeians. I don't see that being the case. There are already Facebook groups and reddit (among tradition…

> The reason Twitter was successful is they paid celebrities and corporations to join their network.

I mean, define 'successful'. Twitter was _culturally important_ for a long time before it was a must-use by celebrities, and it's never been particularly successful in terms of reach (it has a similar MAU to Pinterest, which apparently still exists) or in financial terms.

Like, for a lot of former Twitter users, Bluesky is _already_ successful; it is an adequate replacement for old-Twitter for their needs. That's all that most people are looking for, really.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#189
post #138

And with that, I think the door on Mastodon gaining widespread adoption is closed forever. We had a very brief window when the Twitter Exodus was happening and non-techies were giving Mastodon a try. But it wasn't good enough, as far as giving the Twitter refugees what they wanted to see, and so they simply moved on to the nearest Twitter-With-The-Numbers-Filed-Off platform and stayed there instead. There's probably…

I tried Mastodon twice, and got banned in both occasions for saying things mildly critical of Israel and Ukraine. Mastodon's biggest problem is the hyper-aggressive content moderation on the larger instances. Speaking about Mastodon's tech and UI, it's vastly superior to Bluesky. But they drive people away and then complain that people don't come.

The fediverse can be quite an echo chamber.

Re: Bluesky now has 30 million users

#190
post #73

You mean the social network that keeps showing my wife dick pics even though she turned off adult content? That social network? Pass.

The only way that can happen is if she follows people who post dick pics, sou you are the one who sould be concerned here!
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