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Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

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Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#21

Low quality article aside, Threads also had a major spike in usage that quickly dropped off. I could be wrong, but I’m going to guess Bluesky will be the same. They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation, which I’m not convinced is enough to shift momentum from x to bluesky

X is pretty great now. Once the politics dies down a little it'll be the best place to be for the next 4+ years

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#22
Threads has a massive problem in that it recruits its users from Instagram (there are others but primarily its still a branch of Instagram) which is the domain of AI generated slop and people I actually know in real life.

The whole point of the twitter style firehose is to be not be either of those things. Bluesky honestly probably has a decent shot but I think its still attracting some hyper-orthodox, censorious, thinkers. Musk has gone too far with X[0] but I don't think his vision in the abstract is wrong.

[0] Every accusation is a confession - X is now near-directly attached to the US Gov!

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#23

Low quality article aside, Threads also had a major spike in usage that quickly dropped off. I could be wrong, but I’m going to guess Bluesky will be the same. They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation, which I’m not convinced is enough to shift momentum from x to bluesky

> They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation

Pretty wildly obviously critically incorrect statement right there!

It's still early days, but BlueSky is "protocols not platforms." So there's lots of extensibility baked in.

There's already a variety of custom feeds available. Which in short lets us opt in to whatever algorithms we would like. I love my Quiet Posters feed, which emphasizes folks who aren't super active, who I would otherwise miss.

The default view is a timeline, which is so much better than the disgusting engagement farming shallow or demented shit that floods Threads and X. So the default view is much better, much less polluted with awful garbage, and I have the ability to control what I see, what algorithms I would want to opt in to.

There's a variety of different clients available, which is a nice option for power users and those trying to organize the many flows and feeds they want to keep tabs on.

Everyone else is making links harder to engage with or algorithmically de-prioritizng them. BlueSky claims they "love the open web" and don't do any of that gross entrapping.

The "protocols not platforms" ethos here allows new stuff to get built around and on top of Bluesky. Early days, but there's a bunch of projects listed on for example https://github.com/fishttp/awesome-bluesky . Everything else is run top down by awful sterile controlling corporate interests, but BlueSky has that emerging new possibilities potentiation going strong, by appealing to developers, asking them to build stuff. Here's their latest call for projects... You just don't see that sort of stuff anywhere except BlueSky anymore. https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/discussions/3049

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#26

Low quality article aside, Threads also had a major spike in usage that quickly dropped off. I could be wrong, but I’m going to guess Bluesky will be the same. They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation, which I’m not convinced is enough to shift momentum from x to bluesky

The difference in moderation is night and day.

Soon after Musk took over, I started having accounts wishing me violent deaths, repeatedly commenting on everything I said with graphic details (broken bones, poisoning, dragging my body over the pavement, etc.). That happened occasionally before, but they typically got banned. After the takeover, those were gone (and my account got blocked a couple of times for quoting them).

That hasn’t happened after a year on BlueSky and Threads.

Scams were rampant on large accounts and people looking at cryptocurrencies: more than three-quarters of comments were obvious patterns that I had flagged dozens of times. I noticed those earlier today on Threads; let’s see if they reappear and make up most of the discourse there.

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#27
It's inevitable that social media will split up into separate and distinct networks of people who can no longer stand or even undertand the other sociopolitical tribes.

All of us sharing a singular global network was an exceptional and ephemeral circumstance.

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#28
post #19

Low quality article aside, Threads also had a major spike in usage that quickly dropped off. I could be wrong, but I’m going to guess Bluesky will be the same. They don’t seem to offer anything new/different other than moderation, which I’m not convinced is enough to shift momentum from x to bluesky

As someone (who likes to think) is pretty unbiased politically, I can say I’ll go wherever the people I’m interested post. I have been somewhat surprised that pretty non political accounts have moved to Bluesky which I have interpreted as both political and motivated by the loads of political bs that are posted on x that normal people simply get tired of. I think Bluesky will gain more traction than threads but will…

It's not just that X/Twitter shows you politics whether you want it or not, it's that it's flavor of politics is increasingly resembling that of 4chan. I just skimmed though the auto-play videos on my account and the algorithm decided to show me this for some reason: https://x.com/AlaskanTom/status/1860339990992925170

That's far from the worst I've seen on there either, evidently you can just post about how Hitler was right and it won't affect your visibility at all now, nevermind get you banned.

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#29

Is it all the ways that matter? The author mentions one way, DAU. Sure, that is important but I can think of other things that matter. The number of “creator” accounts matters just as much as the number of lurkers. From my experience Bluesky is way better and has respect for the user’s choice front and center. Lists of users to follow is a first-class citizen feature. Their algorithm is a chronological feed, not boos…

> Their algorithm is a chronological feed Why does a chronological feed get considered and algo? Do we consider SQL queries with WHERE and ORDER BY clauses an algo now?

It absolutely is. Sure it's the default, but it's the default to measure against and beat. It's like comparing ML algos against the average prediction, or forecasts against the previous known value.

Re: Bluesky is on the verge of overtaking Threads in all the ways that matter

#30

Is it all the ways that matter? The author mentions one way, DAU. Sure, that is important but I can think of other things that matter. The number of “creator” accounts matters just as much as the number of lurkers. From my experience Bluesky is way better and has respect for the user’s choice front and center. Lists of users to follow is a first-class citizen feature. Their algorithm is a chronological feed, not boos…

> Their algorithm is a chronological feed Why does a chronological feed get considered and algo? Do we consider SQL queries with WHERE and ORDER BY clauses an algo now?

What else could it possibly be?
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