As users flee from Twitter/X, two visions of social media's future compete: Mastodon's community-controlled network versus Bluesky's venture-backed promises. The difference isn't just technical—it's about whether we'll finally break free from the profit-driven cycle that has degraded every major social platform.
I don’t think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it’s superior technology.
What mastodon isn’t is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don’t feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that’s fine. I want to talk to people who think I’m human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
People prefer to drown than pick option which is not corporate bullshit.
Bluesky won because it’s centralized, and people don’t have to decide over instance.
Lemmy users can subscribe to a community and get tons of posts. I’d have to find 100 people to follow on mastodon to match what a single Lemmy community provides.
Lemmy is barely a thing. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.
People do prefer centralized platforms with shiny front-faces and easy-to-navigate corporate bullshit. The reason why that stuff is so successful is because it works.
People fled to Bluesky because advertisers moved to Bluesky.
There are brands moving there, that’s how a place starts generating value or the perception of value. I saw the same shit happen with twitter and reddit back in the day, this is just the same cycle repeating.
As a user of both Mastodon and Lemmy, I think there are inherit differences between the formats that make Lemmy easily a capable replacement for Reddit, but Mastodon not at all a replacement for Twitter.
To get into specifics, Lemmy is more meme and news based, and as long as there are a few thousand users using it and some percentage of those posting content…it largely scratches the same itch.
Twitter was very much an active global conversation forum. It was nicknamed the hell site for a reason because if someone took issue with or was very amused by something you posted and you became “the main character” of Twitter for even an instant (something I experienced only very slightly) it was electrifying and even sort of scary at times.
In addition, the people that were active on there were very active, and it felt at times like you could talk to anyone who had been twitterized…which was a lot of people including prominent politicians, celebrities, and even experts of certain fields.
It was just an entirely different thing altogether. Mastodon is like many of the Twitter alternatives that have popped up from time to time. It’s largely kinda the same with regards to functionality (though not having quote tweets is completely ridiculous IMO) but the engagement of it is very low, and the place largely feels very inactive. It feels like you’re talking to dead feeds posted in syndication and there’s nobody on the other end (and in many cases I don’t doubt that is literally the case).
It’s not the same as Twitter, and I doubt that Bluesky will even be the same as Twitter. Honestly, maybe all of that’s a good thing. But the virality and the engagement and the discovery and everything on Mastodon is way turned down versus Twitter. Twitter was like the crack cocaine of social media…fast, cheap, addictive, and terrible for you. Mastodon is like a cup of tea by comparison.
I agree on the global forum aspect of Twitter being the reason it was exciting for public figures and journalists, but you get waaay more genuine interactions from normal (techy) people on Mastodon. It may feel a bit dead when you start out because there is no algorithm to feed you content, but after a while of using it you get a lot of interesting opinions and feedback on things you post.
It’s different from Twitter and that’s fine. I have no real drive to join bluesky to see if it’s similar because Twitter felt deeply unhealthy anyway. Crack cocaine isn’t good for you.
Nobody needs to know about the existence of, for instance, “bean dad”.
I think it’s “the algorithm”, people basically just want to be force-fed “content” – look how successful TikTok is, largely because it has an algorithm that very quickly narrows down user habits and provides endless distraction.
Mastodon and fediverse alternatives by comparison have very simple feeds and ways to surface content, it simply doesn’t “hook” people the same way, and that’s competition.
On one hand we should probably be doing away with “the algorithm” for reasons not enumerated here for brevity, but on the other hand maybe the fediverse should build something to accommodate this demand, otherwise the non-fedi sites will.
Twitter is the first time a global social media giant has seen a major exodus (I guess the second if you count MySpace, but the reasons were pretty different). The sample size is very low… It’s easy to forget how new all of this is.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
This isn’t going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn’t just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
I look forward to the documentary.
“Mastodon: Victory Through Technical Superiority”, available soon on Laserdisc and Betamax
I don’t think anybody who administers a mastodon server thinks it’s superior technology.
What mastodon isn’t is funded by fashy techbro asswipe VCs who will turn it into a torment nexus over time, just like X and Meta and Alphabet.
So Mastodon will continue to attract a small minority of people who don’t feel safe or wanted on a fashbro site. And that’s fine. I want to talk to people who think I’m human, not a bunch of Andrew Tate gargling fuck heads.
Feeling like the mastodon crowd are preaching on soap boxes here. Not a bad product but will it attract the general public, probably not .
When they are out of sinking ships to scurry to.
People prefer to drown than pick option which is not corporate bullshit. Bluesky won because it’s centralized, and people don’t have to decide over instance.
Why are you on Lemmy? Or, why do you think the decentralised model works here, but not on mastodon?
Or is it only working because there is no third party VC-backed reddit clone?
Lemmy users can subscribe to a community and get tons of posts. I’d have to find 100 people to follow on mastodon to match what a single Lemmy community provides.
Lemmy is barely a thing. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.
People do prefer centralized platforms with shiny front-faces and easy-to-navigate corporate bullshit. The reason why that stuff is so successful is because it works.
People fled to Bluesky because advertisers moved to Bluesky.
There’s no ads on bsky tho D:
There are brands moving there, that’s how a place starts generating value or the perception of value. I saw the same shit happen with twitter and reddit back in the day, this is just the same cycle repeating.
Maybe, but for now the culture is extremely hostile to *brands*
As a user of both Mastodon and Lemmy, I think there are inherit differences between the formats that make Lemmy easily a capable replacement for Reddit, but Mastodon not at all a replacement for Twitter.
To get into specifics, Lemmy is more meme and news based, and as long as there are a few thousand users using it and some percentage of those posting content…it largely scratches the same itch.
Twitter was very much an active global conversation forum. It was nicknamed the hell site for a reason because if someone took issue with or was very amused by something you posted and you became “the main character” of Twitter for even an instant (something I experienced only very slightly) it was electrifying and even sort of scary at times.
In addition, the people that were active on there were very active, and it felt at times like you could talk to anyone who had been twitterized…which was a lot of people including prominent politicians, celebrities, and even experts of certain fields.
It was just an entirely different thing altogether. Mastodon is like many of the Twitter alternatives that have popped up from time to time. It’s largely kinda the same with regards to functionality (though not having quote tweets is completely ridiculous IMO) but the engagement of it is very low, and the place largely feels very inactive. It feels like you’re talking to dead feeds posted in syndication and there’s nobody on the other end (and in many cases I don’t doubt that is literally the case).
It’s not the same as Twitter, and I doubt that Bluesky will even be the same as Twitter. Honestly, maybe all of that’s a good thing. But the virality and the engagement and the discovery and everything on Mastodon is way turned down versus Twitter. Twitter was like the crack cocaine of social media…fast, cheap, addictive, and terrible for you. Mastodon is like a cup of tea by comparison.
I agree on the global forum aspect of Twitter being the reason it was exciting for public figures and journalists, but you get waaay more genuine interactions from normal (techy) people on Mastodon. It may feel a bit dead when you start out because there is no algorithm to feed you content, but after a while of using it you get a lot of interesting opinions and feedback on things you post.
I’ve been on it for a few years now.
It’s different from Twitter and that’s fine. I have no real drive to join bluesky to see if it’s similar because Twitter felt deeply unhealthy anyway. Crack cocaine isn’t good for you.
Nobody needs to know about the existence of, for instance, “bean dad”.
I think it’s “the algorithm”, people basically just want to be force-fed “content” – look how successful TikTok is, largely because it has an algorithm that very quickly narrows down user habits and provides endless distraction.
Mastodon and fediverse alternatives by comparison have very simple feeds and ways to surface content, it simply doesn’t “hook” people the same way, and that’s competition.
On one hand we should probably be doing away with “the algorithm” for reasons not enumerated here for brevity, but on the other hand maybe the fediverse should build something to accommodate this demand, otherwise the non-fedi sites will.
I feel that if the fediverse starts implementing algorithms like the big, corporate social media sites then they should make opt-out available.
That never seems to happen though
Twitter is the first time a global social media giant has seen a major exodus (I guess the second if you count MySpace, but the reasons were pretty different). The sample size is very low… It’s easy to forget how new all of this is.
Even then, how many people actually left their Twitter accounts?
I can’t tell how many times I’ve seen people say “I’m leaving Twitter” only to come back after a month
I don’t think anyone is claiming technical superiority. And certainly not financial superiority.
But maybe some kind of resilience to the forces of destruction plaguing commercial social media.
This isn’t going to be the effective slogan that turns the masses who are finally just barely starting to fill Bluesky.
As soon as any platform sees a measure of success, it becomes a product and thus vulnerable. If we want social media that isn’t just a massive propaganda and advertising machine, I feel like we need to change something else.
Like physically storming corporate offices and returning the means of production to the people?
Maybe.