@rebeccawatson

Bluesky is a scumbag

Mastodon ftw (obvs 😉 )

@rebeccawatson Sometimes half an hour after i have my coffee i feel like thanking people for good things they have done or just for being great people. It's happening again

Rebecca, thanks for the things you said in this video and for generally being a great person

@rebeccawatson I really appreciate this video, but I just wanted to note that @pluralistic has his own blog site with a fulltext RSS feed.

Also, @404mediaco worked with a company to build a tool to create per-subscriber RSS feeds for blogs using the open-source Ghost CRM. RSS is coming back!

Also also, while I agree that bluesky is bound to go the way of the other Big Tech social media sites, they do have the AT protocol that ostensibly is meant to make it so they can't lock users in in the future, and it has some good features that Mastodon should maybe adopt. That said, there are so many ways they can lock everything back down when they decide they like money more than whatever principles they still seem to have.

I love your work, and I'm glad you're here!

@rebeccawatson
Great post. Just followed.

The way I look at it is that the #Mastodon platform and its different servers are like email, which can be accessed by Gmail, Outlook, Thunderbird, or a host of other email clients. The general population mostly understands email, I would think 🤔

The default #Mastodon app is sorely lacking, which adds to the confusion. But #Tusky for Android is awesome (way better than Xitter app), and I believe #Ivory for iOS is similar. I sometimes open #Tusky because I just like using the app!!

#Fediverse is the future. It just may take some time. Remember when the Internet took off and AOL tried to lock everyone into their ecosystem, and then Microsoft tried the same with Internet Explorer. Eventually, users realised that there is flexibility and choices. Social media is the same. Users need to learn to not get locked into the walled gardens of Xitter, Bluesky, FB etc. There are better options out there.

Should also add... I still use an #RSS reader #Feedly. Great application and my preferred way of getting the news and following interests.

@rebeccawatson

Great video! Worth the watch.

I don't read the comments usually but I'm sure there's going to be a horde of folks braying about how "Bluesky is ackshually an open protocol as well 👓 "

But right now it isn't. Maybe one day it will be and I can setup my own server speaking AT protocol (the actual Bluesky protocol) in my own house and be treated as a first class citizen on Bluesky, but until that day, Bluesky is the same as any other walled garden.

On Mastodon though...I think a big thing that's missing (at least for me) is an "algorithmic" feed that increases the stickiness of the app. Right now, you just see a chronological feed which, unless you're here all the time means you'll miss some posts that you want to see, and see lots of others that you don't care about (chronological feeds favour people who post a lot and consistently--see "chronological" is an algorithm too hmmm....). The great thing about Mastodon though, is that you can build this if you want. Because it's an open protocol, you can do whatever you want, there's nothing that forces clients to display messages in chronological order, it's just a (I believe wrong) belief in the "neutrality" or "non-algorithm" of a chronological feed. I do understand why folks on Mastodon are so against "the algorithm" but I do wish they'd have a more nuanced view of it. It could be used to benefit the users here, instead of the benefit of shareholders.

That said, to me, the less stickiness of the app is a feature, not a bug, I want less social media in my life, so...that works for me. It's like eating veggies, I'd rather eat cake, but I learn to love veggies because it's healthier for me.

@rebeccawatson

"Evidence is mounting"? Wasn't it already well known that his own posts were boosted 1000x compared to others?