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People are actually on BlueSky

There's now a decent measurement of #bluesky user numbers (https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.dev/bsky_users_total.html) ...

They've got about 1.6M MAUs ...
& 0.8M Weekly unique users & 0.340M Daily.

That's not nothing!

Roughly double mastodon and 60% more than the whole fediverse (by MAUs, see fedidb.org).

Bluesky is quite "international" with large Japanese and Brazilian popltns, and there's real attrition happening IMO.

Still, let the protocol wars begin I suppose?

@fediverse

bsky users total (Munin :: edavis.dev :: bskycharts.edavis.dev :: bsky users total)

bskycharts.edavis.dev
#bluesky @Fediverse
in reply to maegul

Anders Eknert
Anders Eknert
• •
people are actually on twitter
in reply to maegul

Anders Eknert
Anders Eknert
• •

😄

I do wish for the Fediverse to grow though, and to include more groups from all over the world. But I feel done with corporate social media, regardless of their MAUs.

in reply to Anders Eknert

maegul
maegul
• •

@anderseknert
Fair (kinda the simple explanation why I'm anti-threads-federation).

While I'm no BlueSky-stan, the idea/promise of the system is a hybrid, which I think is generally worthwhile (especially while things like twitter and threads *dominate*) but also interesting.

How hybridised it becomes (and can become) is the question though with *big* outstanding questions.

@Anders Eknert
in reply to maegul

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •
I find BlueSky to be a lot more diverse and also far better for news than Mastodon. But at the same time it's a nastier and more superficial place.
in reply to Loukas Christodoulou

maegul
maegul
• •

@Loukas
Comparatively, it's definitely a lot more into shitposting vibes, for sure.

I think their biggest problem right now is they don't have good community self-organising features (nor masto, but the boost culture corrects for that IMO), so those who want more serious sub-cultures aren't getting much footing (and may never).

Feeds are interesting but not very fruitful IMO and hashtags are new, so it's a bit flat community-wise there, and many users are "wait & see" I suspect.

@Loukas Christodoulou
in reply to maegul

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •

The lack of community tools might be the biggest technical gap, but the real problem is a lack of communities who want to use either.

Because of this, I think both Mastodon and BlueSky have hit their highwater marks under current conditions and no technical changes can alter that.

A million each is enough to survive and stagnate but it doesn't enable growth. Only some major antitrust action against Meta by EU could do that :)

in reply to Loukas Christodoulou

maegul
maegul
• •

@Loukas
Agreed (and said the same myself)!

As I've said it ... alternative social has run its course in this post-musk-twitter moment. Everyone's settled down where they ended up.

And yea, either more major disruption or some new killer features (rather than clones of big social) will be needed to shake things up. Neither seem particularly likely in the short term ... your EU-meta smackdown is probably the best bet??

@Loukas Christodoulou
in reply to maegul

MikeK
MikeK
• •

So none of you thinks the Threads / Activity Pub thing will have an impact?

My personal opinion is that its a strategic move to avoid regulation by being able to claim they are open.

#threads #activitypub

#activitypub #threads
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to MikeK

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •
@mkarliner We see a lot of actors using the same machinery as Mastodon, from Meta to Truth Social. I think it's just because it's easy for them to do so, and hence the marginal costs are low for them. Rather than it pointing to any strategic intent or meaning anything for the 'Fediverse'. Although in that sense Mastodon has already had a phyrric victory in the protocol wars, because its enemies are using it.
@MikeK
in reply to MikeK

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •
@mkarliner because what we know as the Fediverse will not grow and may disappear, even as the tools it developed and proved could work become widespread and even dominant.
@MikeK
in reply to Loukas Christodoulou

MikeK
MikeK
• •
@Loukas
I may be an optimist, but maybe adoption of AP will help reduce the worst of social media monopolies, and the "our" Fediverse culture is always going to be a minority taste, which is possibly OK.
@Loukas Christodoulou
in reply to MikeK

Loukas Christodoulou
Loukas Christodoulou
• •
@mkarliner It will probably have some effect, yes. But a de facto monopoly based on having almost all the users is almost as significant as an actual monopoly.
@MikeK
in reply to Loukas Christodoulou

Dame
Dame
• •
The Fediverse will grow. Especially, with Threads joining and potentially Tumblr and Post.news. You’re right that the Fediverse we know will disappear. I believe there will and needs to be a great schism. You have strong actions of Lemmy and Mastodon that are anti Threads and anti growth, let’s call them small fedi. Then you have those that will federate with Threads and want the Open Social Web to become the major focus and how most people engage socially online, big fedi. You already have a culture with a lot of infighting and some fundamental incompatibilities, it will only get stronger. It’s best to separate now.
in reply to maegul

Ademir
Ademir
• •

Bluesky is twitter. All the issues we have with X now are bound to happen with bluesky when it gets relevant.

The fediverse is the only viable alternative.

in reply to Ademir

lil
lil
• •
Bluesky is part of the fediverse. Isn't it?
in reply to lil

𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏
𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏
• •
They don't speak the same language as Lemmy and Mastodon, so can't really federate with anyone else at the moment
in reply to lil

Highalectical
Highalectical
• •
They use the AT protocol, whereas the real fediverse uses activitypub. Also, to my knowledge there is currently only one instance that uses the AT protocol: bsky.social.
in reply to Highalectical

Dame
Dame
• •
Your knowledge is wrong. They opened up federation in February. There’s currently people from fedi that have Atproto PDS
in reply to Dame

Corgana
Corgana
• •
Do you have any links? I was unable to find any. Also if you don't mind, what is the benefit to running one's own BlueSky instance when instance owners don't control the moderation?
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to Corgana

Dame
Dame
• •

People would run their own PDS for a couple of reasons, build their own communities, host their own data, their own moderation practices & policies, and maybe they don’t want the “big world” view

https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/22/bluesky-opens-up-federation-letting-anyone-run-their-own-server/amp/

https://bsky.social/about/blog/02-22-2024-open-social-web


Bluesky: An Open Social Web - Bluesky

Today, we’re excited to announce that the Bluesky network is federating, or opening up in a way that allows you to host your own data.
Bluesky
in reply to Dame

Corgana
Corgana
• •
I meant links to instances not owned by the main company. Are there any?
in reply to Highalectical

Handles
Handles
• •
the real fediverse uses activitypub


Well, yeah. There are a few interoperable protocols but activitypub is certainly the major mover and shaker. Friendica and Diaspora doggedly stick to their own protocols afaik but they manage to still federate to the larger fediverse.

in reply to lil

drkt
drkt
• •
They built their own protocol which interacts with nothing else.
in reply to maegul

Ziggurat
Ziggurat
• •
It's crazy that people would rather migrate to a social media managed by a power hungry capitalist than to a "libre" platform
in reply to Ziggurat

heyfrancis
heyfrancis
• •
Majority are not too techy to understand fediverse, nor they really care of the benefit decentralization provides.
in reply to Ziggurat

macwinux
macwinux
• •
It's unfortunate, but regular people don't want to learn about new things and just want one platform where everybody is, basically "Twitter without Musk".
in reply to Ziggurat

FozzyOsbourne
FozzyOsbourne
• •
Is it really crazy? Most users don't give a shit about the tech or politics, they just want to go where the people they are interested in are, and most of them don't care either! Bluesky is actively promoting itself as the new old Twitter, so that's where people who want that are going.
in reply to Ziggurat

IsThisAnAI
IsThisAnAI
• •
Because it's normal people instead of 100s of posts about Linux and thigh highs.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to IsThisAnAI

Corgana
Corgana
• •
LOL this is the answer. For better or worse, the Fediverse has a large established culture. I would not fault someone for trying out every possible alternative first.
in reply to Ziggurat

Vendetta9076
Vendetta9076
• •
Most people dont give a fuck. They just want something better than X and popular. "Power hungry capitalism" doesn't even cross their minds.
in reply to Vendetta9076

matcha_addict
matcha_addict
• •
I agree, but I think it does cross the minds of many. They just still choose not to care.
in reply to Ziggurat

merthyr1831
merthyr1831
• •
I have a mastodon and honestly, it's hardly a replacement. different instances are far too isolated even when federating together. Finding user accounts is difficult, and basic stuff like seeing content on another instance is needlessly kneecapped compared to other ActivityPub stuff like Lemmy.
in reply to maegul

fmc01
fmc01
• •
Bluesky appears to be just a creative way to build a bird site without Moskhos ie indexing and proprietary open source code, & little blueskies within bluesky- if it becomes successful it can’t be long before litigation. Federations are only as good as the people who live there - little moderation means parts of X are like Zombie City - I like it here people are mostly warm, funny, unique, intelligent & reasonably tolerant of each others eccentricities.
This entry was edited (2 weeks ago)
in reply to maegul

william.maggos
william.maggos
• •
but afaik they aren't effectively decentralized yet. might as well use Twitter.
in reply to william.maggos

merthyr1831
merthyr1831
• •
Yup. they "decentralised" servers for hosting profile info but it's still totally centralised for receiving and sending posts.
in reply to maegul

TropicalDingdong
TropicalDingdong
• •
Is blue sky part of the fediverse?
in reply to QuantumEyetanglement

Rentlar
Rentlar
• •
Their federation protocol was called ActivityTrack, which is different than ActivityPub that much of the Fediverse uses. There were some efforts to host relays that translate between the two protocols but some people got upset that their data is being accessed and processed in order to do that.
in reply to Rentlar

QuantumEyetanglement
QuantumEyetanglement
• •
Ahh that fills in the gaps. Thanks for the explanation 🤘
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