Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bluesky signups are now open to the public

bsky.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 284 posts

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#241

Post by steego »

vidarh wrote: post #205
andybak wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmmm. I would argue the web would have been significanty different. There was a fairly big gap between Mosaic and Internet Explorer that Netscape filled and it was the period that largely defined the web as it came to be. Since IE was developed specifically to counter the threat of Netscape - it was also defined by Netscape. What other browsers of note were around in that period?

Netscape 0.9 was released in October '94. IE was released in August '95 and the first version was just a licensed rebrand of Spyglass Mosaic (which despite the licensed Mosaic name was not a version of Mosaic). There was a number of browsers coming up at that time, and Mosaic was if anything what drove much of that early boom, as the most successful option that led to both Netscape, Spyglass, and by extension IE. Rem…

I remember that time and I too appreciate what the different browsers contributed feature-wise, but you’re missing the big picture.

In late 1995, Netscape released a browser that provided investors a comprehensive proof-of-concept online platform that was billed as the operating system for the Internet and they were being offered an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.

JavaScript and CSS didn’t matter. Investors were looking at SSL for eCommerce, Java applets, plugins, VRML, RealAudio, etc.

Netscape stood out because nobody else was selling a comprehensive online platform with a compelling and plausible vision.

The World Wide Web became something because a crap load of money was invested into developing browsers.

It wouldn’t have happened on its own to this degree and none of those browsers were on their way to becoming a household name.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#242

Post by vidarh »

steego wrote: post #241
vidarh wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netscape 0.9 was released in October '94. IE was released in August '95 and the first version was just a licensed rebrand of Spyglass Mosaic (which despite the licensed Mosaic name was not a version of Mosaic). There was a number of browsers coming up at that time, and Mosaic was if anything what drove much of that early boom, as the most successful option that led to both Netscape, Spyglass, and by extension IE. Rem…

I remember that time and I too appreciate what the different browsers contributed feature-wise, but you’re missing the big picture. In late 1995, Netscape released a browser that provided investors a comprehensive proof-of-concept online platform that was billed as the operating system for the Internet and they were being offered an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. JavaScript and CSS didn’t matter. Investor…

In late 1995 the market was even more crowded than when they launched in '94.

IE was already out. Opera was around the corner. Netscape was already close to its peak market share.

Plenty of people were selling alternatives, plenty of developers had funding. A lot of money had started flowing into browsers before Netscape. Had Netscape not soaked up the funding it did, more of that would just have flowed elsewhere.

The argument is not that Netscape were irrelevant, but they were one - big, sure, - player among many racing to commercialise features that already existed before Netscape.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#243

Post by gumby »

jakebsky wrote: post #98
coldpie wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a very inspiring answer :( The consequences of taking VC money are going to come home to roost at some point.

We'll see! The history of funded companies popularizing open protocols is not without precedent. I'm inspired by Netscape, which was the VC-backed company that made the web happen.

Netscape did not start out an open source company -- quite the opposite. It was a saving throw once Explorer took away their dominance. And I wouldn't say it was a successful move.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#244

Post by packetlost »

DoItToMe81 wrote: post #207
packetlost wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've tried to seek out and post technical stuff but it's mostly people virtue signalling, rage baiting, and complaining about other sites.

Most "Twitter alternatives" don't deal with the fundamental, sensation-seeking oriented flaws in the medium and just turn out to be Twitter with more perpetually upset losers. It's disappointing, because a lot of work has gone into these. Especially Mastodon and Pleroma.

I somewhat like Mastodon's model where you can have mostly focus on members within a community that maintains/owns the instance. Federation completely optional, though connecting communities more explicitly would be really cool!

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#245

Post by piperswe »

zimpenfish wrote: post #42
lnxg33k1 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure, during the Twitter drama was in full swing Meta tried to launch an alternative, and how long did it last? A couple of weeks? I think social sector is filled, with boomers on facebook, cool people on instagram, kids on tiktok, woke on twitter, meme people on reddit?

> Meta tried to launch an alternative, and how long did it last? A couple of weeks? If you mean Threads, it's currently up to 130M monthly active users[0]. Estimates for Twitter late 2023-early 2024 are between 350-400M MAU. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/01/threads-now-reaches-more-1...

Who are these users? I haven't heard a single person talking about actually using Threads.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#246

Post by anigbrowl »

jakebsky wrote: post #77
anhner wrote: post #65

Requiring phone number is a straight no go from me, sorry.

Understandable! We hope to relax this but we felt it was necessary to maintain the quality of the network for now.

Long time user here, this is definitely not the way to go.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#247

Post by pentagrama »

jakebsky wrote: post #15

This is a big milestone for Bluesky! We've had the federation sandbox running for over six months but we're now able to commit to open federation on the production network this month as well. There's also stackable moderation coming shortly, which enables other individuals/orgs to operate moderation labeling services that users can choose to use. The technical challenges of setting up an (efficiently) scalable decent…

I tried to sign up and it requires a phone number to verify trough SMS.

Question. The phone will be attached to my account or is for one-time verification? If the latter, it is removed from blue sky database at some point?

Thanks.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#248

Post by rurp »

Sol- wrote: post #47

Reading testimonials from people who seemingly enjoy Bluesky, it sounds like the main perk is its exclusiveness and feeling like the good old days when Twitter was just for hardcore social media nerds? Is that that a recipe for success and wouldn't opening up undermine it? I don't see how any Twitter clone would avoid the pitfalls that make social media like Twitter fundamentally annoying. It's not about the technolo…

I agree that internet-scale communities are pretty bad for many (maybe most) topics. But Discord goes too far in the other direction with terrible discoverability. Most posters who would be good contributers to a given group never learn of its existence.

The old school forum model does the best job of threading that needle that I have seen so far. Forums are easy enough to stumble across when searching a relevant topic, while the narrow focus makes them less of a magnet for stupid trolls and attention seekers.

Reddit solved the hosting and setup problems of a forum, but that company is so far into the enshittification spiral that it hardly seems like a worthwhile place to invest much focus.

I wish that all of the neo-Twitter resources where going towards making better forum-like platforms that actually encourage thoughtful discussion while also leaving space for more lighthearted posting.

Re: Bluesky signups are now open to the public

#250

Post by delecti »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #139
packetlost wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I've tried to seek out and post technical stuff but it's mostly people virtue signalling, rage baiting, and complaining about other sites.

I think a lot of that is on mastodon fwiw, and some hasn't left Twitter

IMO the biggest problem with Mastodon is that for a while decentralization was the biggest selling point. It led to the place being full of a lot of pedantic dorks. The situation did improve as Twitter exploded and various communities migrated in herds though.
Post reply on HN