Fediverse

I can only assume BlueSky feels more familiar.

Mastodon requires a bit of effort, lacking an algorithm to drive content toward users, so you have to do a bit more yourself.

@Sunshine I've shared my thoughts a couple times in similar threads 1 and 2, but to summarize:

One reason is because I think other protocols have some advantages. AT is better end user ease of use wise, and plans to let you control your account via a keypair (already possible with your own PDS). Nostr is more heavily decentralized and considerably more flexible than the other two. That can siphon off existing users or have new users drawn to those spaces. Not to say that ActivityPub doesn't also have its own advantages too, but everybody has different preferences and there's now more choice.

There's also some Activity Pub specific toxicity issues. Too aggressive defederation leads to a point where you can't communicate with most people, and there's some opinions in the space that have turned some people away.

But of course things go up and down, and are never a strait line. I'm guessing all three big protocols will continue to grow, and as they get more interconnected everybody wins, and even if Activity Pub has hit a slump the ecosystem of people you can talk to using it has grown 10x+.

Outside if summarizing my previous takes, there have been some new(ish) things I've seen that don't quite sit right. Things from the top down like the social web director refusing to go to conferences that people from other protocols will be present and encouraging people to not even talk about other protocols. Or - anicdotally - seeing random users happy that the influxes are going to others because they don't want 'normies' on Activity Pub or declaring anybody still using Twitter/X a Nazi sympathizer if not an outright Nazi. If the Activity Pub scene is getting really protectionist it could start also having a negative effect.

Again, overall I expect it to continue trending upwards, and there's a plethora of factors that are unrelated to anything negative regarding Activity Pub's community, but the above (and previous two posts) are the stuff I figured worth bringing up and potentially factors in why ActivityPub has seen weaker adoption compared to the other two big ones more recently.

I think it’s much more difficult to find people to follow. I personally struggle a lot, and will likely either gave up the micro-blogging system or try another platform. It was great on Twitter before Musk bought it, but since I left, I have yet to find an alternative.

People like simple and easy to use.

Bluesky got that, fediverse in general don't have that.

Can you guys help explain it to someone completely inexperienced?

I had Twitter but only used it for following music venues to see upcoming events and bars for happy hour updates. I have a Mastodon account but only played with it for a few minutes because i didn't really get it. I don't understand following a person. What can one person have to say that i would care enough about to download an app. What am i missing?

Simplicity.

Americans love to pretend they are cowboys. In reality they love centralised power and bureaucracy. They are deeply afraid of each other so they flock to platforms that pretend to be for freedom, but is actually highly regulated by centralised power. That’s why they love tech-oligarchs that pretend to be self made geniuses. It allows them to fantasise about freedom to succeed and submit to power at the same time.

Star power. High production values. Less complex (appears to be more centralized, immediately easy to conceptualize as "twitter but not right wing")

I wrote an article on this last night.

https://aidanraymond.medium.com/why-bluesky-isnt-the-alternative-to-x-formerly-twitter-you-re-looking-for-and-why-mastodon-is-46c8901f2748

Mastodon has been around since 2016 and has 804k MAU.

The platform has 57 third party apps.

The platform is decentralized and has community ran servers.

Are you asking about "people" or "nerds"? People prefer Bluesky due to its simplicity and momentum. There are more popular outlets using it. If you're assuming that People would prefer the complexity of the Fediverse and instances, if you think People know what a decentralized community run server is, you're a "nerd" (for lack of a better term, I'm sorry).

The battle has always been the same: Windows v. Apple, Android v. iOS, SMS Twitter v. App Twitter. Some people prefer flexibility and investing time in making things work the way they want (Nerds). Some people want an out of the box product that's well designed and efficient (People).

Fifty Seven Third Party Apps is not a selling point - that's called anxiety inducing fragmentation. Some people want to walk down the grocery store aisle and choose between 57 options for toilet paper and some people just want "good", "better", "best". The reality is that most people just want to be told what to do. They have too much shit going on in their lives to care about "decentralization".

Mastodon will never challenge well financed closed or semi-open platforms. As it's designed, it's apparent it never intended to. It will continue to grow at a slow rate as an alternative. Hopefully, the fediverse is realized and you can choose to host your own server and gain access to other social platforms.

The reality is that this stuff costs money. In the near future, you'll have the same three choices with social media as we do with other services: ad-subsidized, subscription, self-hosted. Anything with ads is going to have an algorithm. Anything with a subscription is going to have a board of directors. Selfhosting comes with a steep learning curve.

whay, or rather who is Blue sky?