What made everybody move from a corporate social media platform to another corporate social media platform instead of the fediverse?

After all, the Fediverse and Activitypub is much more mature than Bluesky and the copycat AT protocol or Threads and … whatever they use.

  • noodlejetski@lemm.eeEnglish
    2501·
    2 months ago
    1. marketing
    2. not having to pick the instance when registering
    3. people who have experienced Mastodon’s hermetic culture discouraging others from joining
    4. algorithms helping discover people and content to follow
    5. marketing

    and I’m saying that as a firm Mastodon user and believer.

    • br3d@lemmy.worldEnglish
      841·
      2 months ago

      2 and 3 are massive. I’m on Mastodon, but am having a much better time on Bluesky. Mastodon is full of gatekeeping and policing and people complaining - Bluesky is just fun and interesting, like Twitter 12 years ago

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        223·
        2 months ago

        Who are these people who actually FIND users go follow on either service???

        I have Bluesky. I have Mastodon. I log into each every few months, realize nothing has changed, and there is nobody to follow.

        Then I don’t use either, until I wonder a few months later “heeeey, I wonder if people are on these services yet…”

        Still no.

        • EleventhHour@lemmy.worldEnglish
          384·
          2 months ago

          Mastodon revolves around following topics and hashtags, not individuals. I learned that early on, and am having a much better experience.

            • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldEnglish
              7·
              2 months ago

              Not really. In terms of engaging with posts, oh my god, absolutely it’s worse. Twitter and its clones suck when it comes to engaging with things people post (but Mastodon at least makes it a bit better by increasing the character limit). But there’s just something different about following a hashtag versus following a Lemmy community. Like for example, when it comes to getting highly detailed, up-to-the-minute news about things, Mastodon beats Lemmy every time. Additionally, I can see people’s random, one-off takes that wouldn’t really warrant a post on Lemmy.

              I would argue too that it’s not even true that you should just be focused on following hashtags, but rather that you should be trying to do both.

              To me, Lemmy is the type of place I could kill two hours; for Mastodon, it’s maybe 15 minutes, but that doesn’t make it inferior, just a different use-case. It’s pretty apples-to-oranges.

          • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
            152·
            2 months ago

            Well then it will never be useful for me. I want to follow PEOPLE. I want people to follow me for the random shit I say.

            Then they retweet the random shit, and now a whole NEW group of people can wonder what’s wrong with me.

            • jollyroberts@jolly-piefed.jomandoa.net
              9·
              2 months ago

              I follow hashtags I like, then see who the people are who use those tags, then follow those people.

              I find that I discover people that way I would not have found otherwise.

              It’s worked well for me so far. I wasn’t a twitter person before though, so I don’t know if I have the experience you did for comparison.

            • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              2 months ago

              If you start following hashtags, then you find interesting people. There are also curated lists that you can sign up for. That will introduce you to a lot of new content.

              • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                2 months ago

                I’m going to copy/paste my last comment. You tell me what hashtag I’m supposed to use.

                ABYSS LOVES CHICKEN WINGS!!!

                CLAP-CLAP-CLAPCLAPCLAP

        • XNX@slrpnk.netEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          There’s algorithms you can subscribe to and use to discover people based on your interests. Theres also algorithms that show you posts based on who you follow and what posts you like. You can also enable your normal Following feed to show you some algorithm posts

          • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
            21·
            2 months ago

            I’m following like 3 people. One is a bot that reposts things from twitter. One is a bot that posts local weather. And one is what I THOUGHT was Nintendo, but turns out it’s just Nintendo@Lemmy.World.

            • XNX@slrpnk.netEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              Well that’s the issue then stop following bots? Look up a hashtag or keyword and find people or subscribe to one of the many algorithms

        • Glasgow@lemmy.mlEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          Use lists on bsky to find people.

          And just gained a million people, biggest spike yet. So should be a bit more active.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Depends a bit on the type of person and content you want to follow. But if you like retro computer Shenanigans etc. I know action retro is on Lemmy and Mastodon and I follow them on mastodon. But yes General content for the normies probably not so much.

      • djsaskdja@reddthat.comEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        The over policing thing is so true. I’ve gotten messages from techhub.social mods with warnings about making jokes that even hinted at breaking one of their precious rules. Like if I did something wrong, ban me I guess. It’s pretty clear I didn’t and the mod just wanted to flex his power towards me.

      • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
        61·
        2 months ago
        1. Is bigger than the rest.

        Take Brazil. Blusky saw the writing on the wall with Twitter, so they threw a ton of money into media. Guess where everyone went.

      • blue_berry@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Regarding 2: you can also join the Fediverse this way with certain clients I believe. You are automatically signed up for lemmy.world for example

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nuEnglish
      14·
      2 months ago

      I’m not on any of the services currently, but I have tried Mastodon in the past and point 4. was what made me bounce off it. I know Mastodon flaunts its algorithm-free feed as almost a point of pride, but as a user it just doesn’t do it for me. I could not get it to serve me the type of content I wanted the way I wanted, and it just felt like way too much work for what I was looking for.

      • doctortofu@reddthat.comEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        I solved this issue by following multiple tags that interest me. People tend to tag their posts on Mastodon it seems, so discovering posts about, say, wine and cacti is as easy as following #wine #cactus #cacti #redwine #oragewine and so on and so forth - it’s working pretty good for me without an algorithm recommending stuff to me, maybe it’s worth a try?

        • Coelacanth@feddit.nuEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I’d still rather have algorithmic recommendations of what’s been “hot” lately in the tags I follow over a chronological feed. But I’m considering giving Sharkey/Firefish/Iceshrimp another go.

          • mke@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            Why are there three forks(?) of what I assume is Misskey? I think the original is still kicking, even.

    • Handles@leminal.spaceEnglish
      10·
      2 months ago

      Marketing, sure, but the onboarding from Instagram was a massive factor for Threads growth.

    • Alex@lemmy.mlEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      There are some advantages to algorithms for discovery - it’s certainly is more user friendly. It’s just a shame they tend to enshitify or become toxic. Bluesky seem to offer an API of sorts to plug in feeds you create. Perhaps open algorithms are more accountable?

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Absolutely agree with point 2, not just for Mastodon, but others like here on Lemmy or Misskey or whatever it may be.

      The process of finding an instance can sometimes be annoying because you might find an instance that sounds alright, like I did for Mastodon, and then find that there’s the problem of sign-ups not available. That, and signing up for the instance I got on then had a waiting period for account review and all that before I could do anything.

      I assume, from what I’ve heard, all you gotta do for threads and bluesky is just sign up and start posting with less effort, which is what the majority of people want.

    • ristoril_zip@lemmy.zipEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      If Mastodon wins out in the long run the only reason will be persistence.

      All these other “like Twitter but ______” micro blogging or whatever sites only stay viable while they’re profitable.

      If Bluesky or Threads become (net) unprofitable, they’ll die. Mastodon is already unprofitable, so that can’t kill it.

      I think we could compete with #1 just by word of mouth.

      For #2 some person or group needs to develop a Mastodon app (FOSS obviously) that has a “just do this part for me” option, probably automatically enabled.

      #3 is on us. We have to do what we can to make Mastodon (and Lemmy) more open and accepting without falling pretty to the paradox of tolerance.

      #4 is hard… Although I think if Mastodon follows or tries to replicate the “early” Facebook user experience where most or all of the content people got was from people they follow, that could be better. The only challenge is that algorithms tickle our anger/hate/disgust impulses to drive and maintain engagement. That’s some very strong “lizard brain” stuff.

      So… let’s get going y’all! :)