Hey, I wanted to ask someone who has probably more knowledge than me about it - what’s the difference about these two services? I know Mastodon has ActivityPub, so it works with Lemmy, and BlueSky has it’s own kind of federation, but does it even has anything to federate to?
I’m asking not which one is better, I’m searching logical argument for one or other. I’m obviously more leaning toward Mastodon since I’m here, but I wanted to give my friend, who is thinking about joining, some real arguments.
Blue sky is for people who want something that works. Mastodon is for people who think they know how to make it work.
Unfortunately, fair point, yeah. I wish it weren’t like this. I’m here, and both those places, and I have to say that my engagement with BlueSky is far higher. That said, Lemmy and Mastodon have the potential to be something very special.
Bluesky is the first app built on the ATProtocol, its protocol for federation, sort of like how Mastodon was among the first to use ActivityPub after the overcomplexity of OStatus. The ATProtocol is a few years younger than ActivityPub, so its landscape isn’t fleshed out yet. Currently Bluesky caters more towards creators, artists, and social togetherness, whereas ActivityPub tends to lean harder into attracting techies. Both protocols can be run as independent instances, but most people are still using bsky.social for now until more instances pop up and federate together. The process for hosting a Bluesky instance is still undergoing development, but all features of it have been opened up. There exist multiple bridge systems that can interweave ActivityPub with ATProto.
https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds
https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/entries/Notes on Running a Full-Network atproto Relay (July 2024)
Bluesky is cool and trendy. Mastodon isn’t.
Damn. I knew I belonged on Mastodon but you didn’t have to be so blunt about it…
To be fair, Bluesky has been a really good and positive experience for me so far. And I’ve used Mastodon and Twitter.
I keep trying to want to use Mastodon. But I’m using Bluesky far more. Heck, maybe more than here at this point, just because it’s been so…refreshingly positive.
And I had absolutely no interest in Twitter at any point.
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TL/DR Mastodon server admins have a great amount of control on who you can follow. Searches may not find everyone due to defederation. Bluesky puts the control for this in the users’ hands with more robust search and moderation tools.
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Bluesky is growing as is Threads. I’ve read several articles over the past week and not one stated Mastodon is gaining users.
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I’ve been on Mastodon for a couple of years and, for me, it’s so boring. Been on Bluesky for about a week. I currently have more followers and am following more than I ever did on Mastodon.
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Mastodon was setup with the idea of users would use hashtags to find people to follow but I’ve noticed half the posts have no hashtags. I’ve also seen a lot of hashtag abuse to reach a wider audience - hashtags being added to a post that has nothing to do with the topic. An example is #privacy being added to a painting of a beach.
There are followlists (called Starter Packs) for different topics and occupations. Lawyers, teachers, privacy enthusiasts (me), AI reachers, anyone really can find a group of people to follow that share your interests. These are created by users, not the company.
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With Mastodon being federated if you block someone and they move to another server, you need to block them again. This isn’t good for someone being abused by a stalker.
They don’t mess around with blocking trolls “Don’t feed the trolls” could be the site motto.
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You could be on a server that gets defederated or have someone blocked from your searches by the owner of your server. This will limit who you can follow.
Bluesky puts this control back in your hands. There are blocklists to make it easier to remove the maga, nazis, rightwingers, cryptobros, etc from your sight. Moderation tools are far easier to use. Muting of hashtags can be done from the Discover timeline.
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Bluesky is very left leaning which I’m not sure I like. An example, the other day there was a thread about using blocklists and a user said they are silly because you have to trust the creator of that list. Another user said talk like that will get you blocked, many people agreed with the second user. That culture worries me. BTW I agree with the first user.
Bluesky is very left leaning which I’m not sure I like. An example, the other day there was a thread about using blocklists and a user said they are silly because you have to trust the creator of that list. Another user said talk like that will get you blocked, many people agreed with the second user. That culture worries me. BTW I agree with the first user.
How is this an example of “left leaning”?
Yeah, I thought about that at work today. I should have said ‘Bluesky is developing a “group think” culture’.
I appreciate the self-reflection.
Thank you. I have to admit when I’m wrong. Doubling down is just cringe.
I’ve been on Mastodon for a couple of years and, for me, it’s so boring. Been on Bluesky for about a week. I currently have more followers and am following more than I ever did on Mastodon.
To me, that’s an argument for Mastodon.
To each their own.
You can block hashtags or words, and you can set a time period to do so. From an hour to forever.
This sums it up
Bluesky is the Microsoft Word of social media, which I mean in the derogatory sense, as the fediverse is the LaTeX of social media, which I also mean in the derogatory sense
The difference is one is where people will continue going, the other is where people will continue crying because people won’t go.
Is Mastodon Lemmy? Is bluesky Twitter alternative? I just want reddit alternative.
I think the biggest end user perspective difference between mastodon and Lemmy is mastodon is designed more for following people and organizations and the occasional hashtag topic like Twitter, Lemmy is closer to reddit in that is more organized for topics and communities where individual identities are less important, less people use legal names, etc. I also see more advertising on mastodon but that may just be an instance or moderator thing and not a general difference.
Mastodon has a certain level of federated connectivity with Lemmy, but it’s also a Twitter alternative, similar in that way to BlueSky. Lemmy (or mBin) is the Reddit alternative.
