When you post on Twitter(1) or Bluesky(2) you grant them a broad perpetual license to use, modify, and sublicense your content. You effectively make them co-owners of your content. They can mine it and monetize it. They can even sell it. When you post on Mastodon(3) most instances take no license at all. That's right, they tell you what they are doing with your content—storing posts and delivering them—but no license.
Wait so are people actually using Bluesky? I keep seeing people talking about Bluesky on the fediverse. I figured people wouldn't actually use it after what happened with Twitter...
Godspeed to everyone excited to try out #BlueSky, but remember it's Jack Dorsey's, ex twitter billionaire.
He was happy to pass it on to Musk, calling him "the singular solution I trust".
They claim to be decentralised but aren't (at least not yet) and their TOS are quite over the top, claiming ownership of anything uploaded to the platform (like Facebook).
Mastodon/Fediverse is by no means perfect. But I'd rather stay away from these ultra rich psychopaths thanks.
I think the question to ask on #bluesky is.... What problem is it solving? Admittedly, I am not on Bluesky yet, but I like to explore to learn - if nothing else. The problem, and what I keep hearing, is it is Twitter 2.0. With that said, I still don't know what problem it solves. It cannot be the "Twitter without Elon". Surely this is not good enough.
The federated solution seems to solve the problem of having ONE company control social media. So hence, I am here on a platform like #mastodon.
I'm considering writing a formal document (FEP?) that specifies how an ActivityPub service (including both server and client behavior) may implement domain-only names like #Bluesky has. Because it's the biggest beneficial thing Bluesky has that we don't (the one other thing is detached "preferred" handles, which is related). I've reasoned somewhere else before that it would be super helpful for #BridgyFed, #Tumblr, and #Wordpress.
My hot take on #Bluesky is that it is never going to be federated in practice.
Federation inherently brings considerable complexity - and already well-followed #Twitter users moving over are just seeking a wholesale anti-#Musk alternative.
By and large, they do not care about the benefits of federation (which is understandable)... and so there will be no demand for implementations of the #ATProtocol outside of the default, proprietary instance.
@anildash does a good job of explaining why we should not be antagonistic toward projects like Bluesky, if they're at least decentralized, a step toward a true open web.
But I understand why many see this is as opening the door to big corporate dollars that MIGHT suck interest — and community support $$ — from Fedi instances. Of course, it will do some of that, but if the whole fedi project can be so easily eclipsed, we'll have to question why, and seek remedy. Isolationism rarely works.
And i say this as someone who hopes #BlueSky dies a swift death, mainly because Fedi needs a bigger head start. But I really don't think that's going to happen any time soon. So we well have to co-exist and each will have to prove our value propositions, or risk irrelevance, extinction—or both,
Some people will never leave Twitter because it's familiar, they're an established journalist addicted to feeling important, or because they're right-wing chuds who want to see Musk and Truth Social Redux succeed.
Some will migrate to Bluesky for Twitter without Musk. Some will stick with Mastodon on principle or because it's good enough. And then there's some also rans. But I don't think Mastodon or Twitter are going anywhere anytime soon.
@gwynnion This has always been my frustration with #Mastodon — that its developers and community don't aspire to unseat Capitalist control of social media. They "think small," despite the huge potential #ActivityPub offered.
Had Gargron allowed for "quote toots" and popularity-sorted feeds, Mastodon would have nipped #Bluesky in the bud months ago.
Now that window has probably passed, and some VC-funded alternative protocol will overshadow it.
My hot take is that I feel like #BlueSky's success/failure has no implications for Mastodon whatsoever. The people who'll really be into BlueSky were never going to like Mastodon anyway; the Mastodon HOA diehards feel the same about BlueSky. These are also both tiny and complicated platforms compared to Twitter.