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Bluesky adds direct messages

bsky.social

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Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#31

Post by TaylorAlexander »

ramesh31 wrote: post #26
ncallaway wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From using Bluesky it feels like the goal is to build a social media experience that’s as decentralized as possible without sacrificing the user experience. So, they want the experience to be like Twitter for the users that don’t care about decentralization, but to be backed by something like ATProto underneath for those who care. I’d say Mastodon is more “the entire point is that it’s decentralized”. Bluesky it’s a…

>Bluesky it’s a major point, but not the entire point. And I'd say that was the right tradeoff to make. Mastodon is only marginally more useful than IRC at this point, and is completely useless to the average person. I as a developer have yet to even figure out how it's supposed to work. And no, I'm not going to spend hours digging through docs.

I mean you can just sign up and use it. No need to read docs. I have plenty of complaints, but it’s largely alright imo.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#32

Post by pjc50 »

jsheard wrote: post #6
matsemann wrote: post #3

Impressed by the rate new features are coming. During the first twitter takeover, many migrated to mastodon in my circles, but it didn't stick. Second wave to bsky has gained enough traction that the circle has sustained there for over half a year, with most disabling their account on X. But a few have remained on X mainly to be able to DM. So this fixes that. What's lacking for me now is video. Having to share throu…

Video is the killer because it's expensive. Don't they still have no ads and only one paid feature, buying a custom domain name through them directly? Which nobody actually has to pay them for because you can link a domain name registered anywhere else for free.

They could just charge for video. Inconcievable to have end-user usage pricing, I know, rather than just give away everything, but someone should try it.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#33

Post by ziml77 »

DataDive wrote: post #11

Zawinski's Law: > Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. I think nowadays we can substitute email with chat/DM.

It's important though because it allows you to communicate things that don't really belong in the open while remaining under your identity on that platform and avoiding the need to link that identity with your identity on a different service.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#34

Post by moneywoes »

bitwize wrote: post #16
DataDive wrote: post #11

Zawinski's Law: > Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. I think nowadays we can substitute email with chat/DM.

Nowadays it's chat, photos/videos, and online purchases thus forming an all-in-one app. Not quite popular here in the West, though that's Elon's eventual goal with X. But think WeChat in China.

whatsapp as well

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#35

Post by doublerabbit »

ziml77 wrote: post #18
TheBlight wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the entire point of Bluesky was that it was to be decentralized? Did that change?

That was the idea with Bluesky, but people refuse to budge from Twitter without DMs integrated into the platform.

Which applies to WhatsApp, TikTok too.

The main issue with other platforms is that the content that exists within are too wild-west. Anime isn't a everybody thing nor are geeky Programming/Linux communities or furry artwork for that matter.

Where do I find TikTok content within Matrix? That's what the current content-matter is.

The corporate apply heavy exploitation; psychology and social exploits to the user. And while the other platforms don't and carry merits such as privacy and the likes; people really just don't care they are being used for systematic learning, being manipulated because some peer is influencing them.

Companies pay large amount of money in R&D for developing social exploits, all the way down to the background colour of the icon of the app. A platform has to have a gimmick to catch. Privacy, decentralized isn't it.

These foundations don't have corp money to pay for content producers, influencers and so you then end up with dwellings of niches which can turn urk at best.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#36

Post by kevinak »

The problem with BlueSky is that they built something specific for Twitter like experiences.

Nostr is much better positioned to take on these large platforms IMO. You can build pretty much any social experience on it.

Here's a selection of things folks have built on top of the protocol: https://www.nostrapps.com

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#38

Post by theeandthy »

gary_0 wrote: post #30
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

Didn't the early versions of Skype, which was coded by like 4 guys, do decentralized end-to-end encrypted messaging like 20 years ago? Before MS bought it and removed all the security at the behest of the government[0], I mean. So two decades later, when we now have so many widely available open source libraries for networking and encryption, that job is somehow too hard for a well-funded organization like Bluesky? T…

Curious if they could simply piggyback on the Signal source code. Lots of folks try to reinvent the wheel these days. Just like protocol buffers reinvented ASN.1 + PER and so-forth. Even the crypto folks at protocol labs opted for the former in place of an established standard.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#39

Post by mjg59 »

gary_0 wrote: post #30
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

Didn't the early versions of Skype, which was coded by like 4 guys, do decentralized end-to-end encrypted messaging like 20 years ago? Before MS bought it and removed all the security at the behest of the government[0], I mean. So two decades later, when we now have so many widely available open source libraries for networking and encryption, that job is somehow too hard for a well-funded organization like Bluesky? T…

End to end encryption is not a hard problem from a cryptography perspective. It's a hard problem for key management (eg, how do you handle multiple devices?) and recovery (how do you handle someone losing their phone and wanting to recover their previous messages?). Twitter tried this and half-assed it, and Bluesky apparently want to do a better job.

Re: Bluesky adds direct messages

#40

Post by ziml77 »

gary_0 wrote: post #30
shadowfacts wrote: post #7

Not only are they not end-to-end encrypted, Bluesky's DMs seem like they're entirely centralized. From their 2024 roadmap: > We looked closely at alternatives like linking to external services, re-using an existing protocol like Matrix, or rushing out on-protocol encrypted DMs, but ultimately decided to launch a basic centralized system to take the time pressure off our team and make our user community happy. https:/…

Didn't the early versions of Skype, which was coded by like 4 guys, do decentralized end-to-end encrypted messaging like 20 years ago? Before MS bought it and removed all the security at the behest of the government[0], I mean. So two decades later, when we now have so many widely available open source libraries for networking and encryption, that job is somehow too hard for a well-funded organization like Bluesky? T…

Doing it in a way that behaves the way people expect is what requires work. It's easy when both people are online at the same time. It becomes more difficult when you want to ensure asynchronous delivery and receipt and which supports people hopping between devices and not losing the conversation history. I can naively think of a way which would be to make them work identically to normal Bluesky posts except they're encrypted with a public-private keypair, but that would leak who is talking to who and how many DMs people are sending and receiving.
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