@atomicpoet I think for me this is a reminder that the average person sadly does not really think or care much about decentralization, power, privacy, all of it. The average person continues using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. despite all their problems. Occasionally the culture on one platform becomes something they don't like and they switch to another. But it's more about the culture of where they are going, not the details behind it. So they end up on new platforms with very similar deep issues.
That's what I see happening with many people with BlueSky. Most of them are not taking a deep look at protocols, privacy policies, capitalism, or moderation strategies. They are just unhappy with the place they are now, and looking for something that gives them the feelings they had before their current place became less fun.
@atomicpoet I got my intro to micro-blogging on Mastodon. Tumblr before that. Twitter was too competitive and yelly for me. But it's powerfully attractive to former users. So I see l lot of hope that Bluesky will be like Twitter. I'd have to see federation in action before I give Bluesky 👍 or👎. I tried Nostr, and it worked ok, but too much crypto shilling.
@atomicpoet@TAI You won't get here the institutions (let's say NPR, although I don't know who is on Bluesky at the moment) that Dorsey attracts to there, if you don't give those institutions what they want. It's the same with journalists and more.
At the very least, Bluesky is supposed to be built where we can run bridges, so this point might soon become moot. Somehow though I doubt that'll last, just like XMPP. At some point, it'll be all the same. One official app, no other choice. One centrally controlled network. That way nobody has to think (for themselves).
Now that I think about it, this is the exact reason ChatGPT is so popular.
@atomicpoet then I think you should embrace what you just said. The criticism of twitter and invitation, pitching this as an alternative seems ridiculous if that's the case. It's as if people are looking for more comfortable shoes and you come along selling them a shirt?? With your position you should leave twitter users out of the equation for what you're trying to do. I'm not buying it though, there was so much positive that came out of twitter that nefarious actors are trying to smother
@atomicpoet social media sites have conditioned their users to create echo chambers by surrounding themselves with only what they want to hear. Centralized media sites like this because the lack of critical thinking by their users means they can manipulate those users more easily.
@atomicpoet Indeed, they have the idea of selling from the start: why else would BlueSky ask people on the waiting list for their phone numbers?
That's exactly when I stopped waiting.
@atomicpoet To my admittedly non-techie self, advocating for a single-server platform (but without Elon Musk) because it's simpler/easier seems like saying, "democracy is complicated and messy; can't we just have an efficient totalitarian government but with an enlightened leader instead of another Hitler?"
@atomicpoet I think it's in part because you replied out of context. It leads people to wonder "where the hell did that come from?" I've made that mistake countless times.
I think this is the greatest flaw with decentralized and federated systems: they have holes about where you can interact, all in different places.
@atomicpoet Plus) I bet Musk and Dorsey are playing "Good Cop/Bad Cop" against us and there is no real choice between corporate plague and corporate cholera…
>still shadowbanning people and talking points
>still only showing you the posts that keep you on the site (usually rage-baits, which most of the time will make your IRL life worse)
>still pumping your feed with ads
@atomicpoet There's a lot of this out here, people who want Mastodon to be Twitter 2. They want exactly the same #centralization that led to Twitter being so easy to co-opt. Openness has become vilified as dangerous. It's not great. It's authority worship by any other name.
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