life choices

If they want to reach their customers, they likely won't find them on mastodon.. hard to ignore millions of engaged users 🤷‍♂️

Simple, just use Mastodon.social
/s
You seem to mix up cause and effect.

As much as I'd love to see mastodon grow, I feel like a lot of people here like to ignore the number one most important feature of a social network: who's on it.

Bluesky didn't start with millions. Europeans chose it when there were none. Like Facebook getting its start because Savarin used his college frat connections across the country to get the ball rolling, I'm sure there were paid influencers who got things moving for Bluesky.
- and mastodon just can't have the social network with how confusing it is to a normal user, just like lemmy.
  Decentralized platforms will never take off as long as people talk about how it works, you just need a URL with a sign up function that works and an app you can install, log in to and it works. That's what a normal user wants.
This a bold comment to post on Lemmy
Literally the term network effects
To me, that's relevant for messaging apps, not social networks.
But then again I follow hastags first, then people I find through those hashtags.

Pro: can't really go viral on the mastodons.

Con: can't really go viral on the mastodons.

That’s not true. I got 20 likes this week!
- I made a post about the unfortunate Ao3 data scrape that occurred a few weeks ago and got a good amount of boosts and likes.
  I'm wasn't a frequent poster on non-fediverse social media sites anyway, so this was a new record for me lol. I actually like posting on the Fediverse.

This. Bsky has the tech for federation, but the technical hoops are more than most can handle. So everybody is absolutely centralized on the bsky.social instance.
I think one person has managed to establish a second instance that jumps through Bsky's hoops, but only one – almost everybody is still on bsky.social and will likely continue to be.
Is it cooler than Twitter was 10 or 15 years ago?

Fuck me, I wouldn't join BS even if you paid me. I've stepped on the centralised social network rake one too many times.

I guess I'll lose out on the viral influencer garbage I don't care about and brands doing cringe shit to push their products.

I'd love to use Mastodon more than I have BUT I DONT FUCKING USE LINUX AND I DONT WANT TO FUCKING HEAR ABOUT IT ALL GODDAMN DAY

So you turned to Lemmy. Great choice.
- Yeah. Its going downhill fast
You should just use Linux.
- What do you think about Linux Mint?
Not having an algorithm means you need to curate your content.
If you drink from the fire hose you're only going to get bean juice.
sorry but we cant just say no to an oportunity to suggest to you use linux
- I noticed. I'm not having any of the problems that linux supposedly fixes.
Linux, AI, LGBT and Trump/Musk. Everyone, every day. People need to know about those subjects, but it's awful to restrict the diversity of the world to the same recycled messages. It's like hearing Lois Griffin saying 9/11 time and time again 😅.
Lol I'm a linux user, but I rarely see content about it on Mastodon. I try to center over conversations and so and try to keep Tech content here in Lemmy.
You literally create your feed and select the people you want to connect to, it's easier to control the things you see ;)
You can filter posts with specific words or phrases. Or you could make the better choice of switching to Linux and getting a nice pair of programmer socks.
- No post I have ever made has generated more response than this one, which kindof reinforces my point

Bluesky is for people that want Twitter to go back to the “progressive” highly moderated/censored hugbox that it was before Musk bought it. They don’t want decentralisation or any of the supposed privacy that brings (which isnt actual privacy anyway), they just want old Twitter where everyone agrees with each other cause they ban everyone that doesn’t. Bluesky is that because it’s a literal Twitter clone from the guy who made Twitter.

I tried making an account on bluesky. I was using orbot at the time. It let me make an account and then instant acocunt suspension. Similar to other platforms.
I appreciate the platform preemptively stopping me from wasting my time. I should have known better.
- That was incredibly thoughtful of them, not gonna lie
Let me check your comments real quick. Yeeeeaaaahhhh, that's what I thought. "FreedomAdvocate", it was so obvious.
- For real; the second I saw "hugbox", I was like, "Hmm…."
- Ew, ew, ew, fucking ew
- Let me check yours real quick…….oh wow, what a surprise - everyone you disagree with is a fascist.
The important part on mastodon is that you have the choice to join whatever place you want, look at the stuff you want, have moderation as much or less as you want and cant be forced to anything really.
The fedi in total is about freedom, not privacy. Privacy in public posts is pretty much nonexistent. The only "privacy" argument i can think of is you cant be forced to link accounts and you can make thousands which makes it hard to grasp who you are today.
Still a vastly better idea than bluesky.
- In reality that’s not how mastodon or Lemmy or any other fediverse place work though, especially moderation wise. Your instances mods only control content on that instance, and you’re still at the mercy of the tyrannical mods on other instances. With the much smaller population on them, there are already “default” communities about topics that if/when you’re banned from them by some wannabe dictator ex-Reddit mod there’s nothing you can do, just the same as it was on Reddit.
  Privacy has been sold as one of the big benefits of the fediverse, like it or not. I just mentioned that it isn’t private at all.
I agree with you in part, but I find just wanted to put the footnote that good moderation isn’t censorship (unless it’s literally being used to suppress alternative viewpoints). Good moderation is just reminding everyone of your grandmother’s rule that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it all. And there is nothing wrong in joining an instance like that and doesn’t make your instance an echo chamber.
- Good moderation isn’t censorship, but let’s be real - good moderation by random volunteer internet users is rarely ever good moderation. Most of the time it’s just suppressing alternative viewpoints.
what topics are being banned?
- Kurdish independence is the first that comes to mind.
- Topics aren't banned, but certain sides opinions on topics are heavily moderated/censored.
Bsky user here - I just want Twitter without Nazi bullshit.
- I just want Twitter without opinions I don’t agree with

Being on both…. I can say I am on Bluesky way more, more engagement, more big names etc etc. Mastodon feels dead in comparison.

You seem to mix up cause and effect.
That’s strange, having bridged my account to both, I actually feel the opposite. I have way more engagement on the Mastodon side to the point where I forget I bridged my account to bluesky.
I mean it certainly helps that all my posts are tech and retro gaming related but still
Thank god it does. Very glad to not have literal tons of content every day fighting for my attention.
As a Brazilian, I feel that. Although I wish Bluesky has more content with "less" left wing, because I feel that I am entering a bubble (Which is why I left Twitter, also Fuck Elon).

Mastodon user here since 2017. Sure, Bluesky requires less learning for those who come from other centralized platforms and nobody has to deal with fediblock drama over there. Some may also point to Bluesky's users being less tech-savvy and less prone to dogpiling on tech companies for their poor decisions, which I don't believe is completely true. Something I do love about Mastodon though is I don't need any mods or admins to make decisions for me. I can calmly stay in an instance I trust and filter everything, every single small bit, to fit my own criteria. I get others think this is bad moderation and wish to depend on third parties to answer their reports, clean the servers and "do justice" but I prefer to make those decisions myself and let others make theirs.

Yup, any client will allow you to block accounts or instances but noooo the other instance's admins must do it because someone somewhere somehow got micro-offended at something!
a lack of moderation is how you get 4chan and x
- Both are pretty heavily moderated.
- That's a huge oversimplification. UX design and a careful selection of settings and features, for instance, have a big role in that regard. It's not what you prohibit but what you incentivize too.

Everyone who has anything to say should post on both, then ditch Bluesky once they have enough followers on Mastodon.

Also, if you don't mind absolute chaos because of intentionally no moderation -> Nostr

If you also don't mind crypto whackos everywhere...

Mastodon ANYTHING < bsky, sadly.

explain why?
- Absolutely ABYSMAL branding and accessibility.
  Social media relies, no matter how much we hate it and wish it weren't the case, on things being "new", "hot", and "FAST" while this service's name implies the absolute ANTITHESIS of what people need to disseminate information in real time: mastodons are frozen, dead, ancient, clumsy, and/or fossilized. And worse, that's how it feels to use, too.
  An extinct lumbering beast from the ice age.
  Also its name is a clumsy dactyllic meter full of dull woody phonemes that doesn't feel good to say. Its name lands with a dull wet thud. Mastodon's name is so forgettable that nobody i ever tried to tell about it can even REMEMBER it, and even my best friend for some reason imprinted its name as "WalrusChat" (which is SO much worse but silly with that it stuck) and she can't remember it any other way to this very day.
  Gods, the mileage it could have done with just, JUST a better name. Two syllables with accent on the first just like Facebook Lemmy Twitter YouTube Snapchat Discord Ebay PayPal Google Apple Samsung TikTok WhatsApp Signal and LinkedIn. Even Pinterest and Instagram, in conversation I constantly hear people pronouncing them as pint-rest and truncating to In-sta.
  If it were made of bright, sharp, tinny phonemes that POP on the two syllable meter it'd have been extra good. I would have liked Trunky. It's bouncy and playful and fun and it keeps the pachyderm symbolism so posts could still be called toots.
  The problems extend to the interface experience too: Instead of liking and bookmarking there's only FAVORITING and that adds FRICTION because just because you like something doesn't mean it's your FAVORITE. Favorite implies permanence in an otherwise transient medium and people mistake it for BOOKMARKING which needs to be its own separate functionality. Instead people see posts they appreciate, go to like it, but then STOP and ask themselves "wait, I like this but is it really my 'FAVORITE'??? No, that's a bit too much..." And their minds have already moved on!
  THIS IS WHY THERE IS SO MUCH LESS ENGAGEMENT EVEN ON MASSIVE INSTANCES WHERE THE CONTENT IS A FIRE HOSE
  AND GUESS WHAT: LACK OF ENGAGEMENT IN A CONTENT DISSEMINATION SOCIAL MEDIA APP IS,
  UH,
  CHECKS NOTES
  BAD, ACTUALLY!
  They COULD have lent into the branding! For bookmarking, call it "remember" (because elephants never forget!) and their "like" analog could have been "trumpet" (like trumpeting praise) whereas "boost" should have JUST been called ReToot. But instead nothing feels right and it's clunky as SHIT.
  And if all that isn't already BAD ENOUGH, Having created several profiles on several instances myself, the sheer disparity of content from instance to instance is VAST. You can't just go on mastodon and see the same things everyone else sees! AND THAT'S A BIG FUCKING PROBLEM! You can't just BE "on mastodon", you gotta also know WHERE ON MASTODON something is and follow it. AND MAYBE YOU FOLLOWED THE WRONG ONE ON THE WRONG INSTANCE FROM THE WRONG INSTANCE.
  so much
  FUCKING
  BULLSHIT.
  AND ITS NAME WASN'T EVEN ORIGINAL! SEARCH RESULTS COLLIDED WITH A METAL BAND OF THE SAME NAME FOR YYYYEEEEAAAARRRRSSSS!
  that's why.

I've spent a lot of time on bsky since the opened shop but I still haunt this place a lot for a more open ended viewpoint where bsky is more the antitwitter

FUCKING

BULLSHIT.