“Never” is a strong word. API translation is a technical hurdle, but rarely an insurmountable one. If Blue Sky wanted to add an ActivityPub interface to their platform, they probably could.
This issue isn’t technical per se; it’s a matter of priorities. Blue Sky doesn’t want to federate with Mastodon/Threads, because they want users to switch to their platform.
Oh, well that’s good anyway. Is it true that they only have like one major server? Because I’ve heard that, but I haven’t looked much into them, so I’m not sure if it’s still the case or not. To my understanding, they are meant to be a federated network, but really only have the one server.
Yeah this is still true as far as I know. Honestly this is probably what allowed BS to gain a foothold; I like mastodon too but asking new users to pick a server was always going to be a source of adoption friction.
Has an aggressively unpleasant user base and nowhere near the blocking functionality that Bluesky has, which is essentially mandatory now for minorities on the internet. Not to mention an onboarding process that can confuse the tech literate, much less the average person.
This comment is not an invitation to talk about how actually it’s very simple and intuitive if you follow a 20 step process that relies on detailed knowledge of how federation works.
Don’t forget the disproportionate control individual mods have over the network due to the shared defederation lists. I was on a general purpose instance which found itself defederated from a large part of the network because a mastodon.art admin had disagreement with a mod on the one I was on.
Putting aside control and anecdotes, neither of which would be fair to comment on without more context and a lengthier discussion, this breaks the email metaphor a bit, doesn’t it?
The Fediverse is just like email, where we all talk to each other, except Outlook blocked Gmail because MS and Google had a fight during a meeting so you’re gonna have to migrate to Yahoo or learn to self-host.
That’s not necessarily a criticism, I just find it funny.
I think it’s easy to understand Mastodon, or any federated service, using a metaphor for a country or large place, where you can say “I want to move to X country” but then you have to actually pick a place IN that country to live, like a specific city or rural district. Once you decide on your instance, it’s really not that hard
You dont need to explain email so federation does not seem to be the issue here IMO. The problem is money which FLOSS projects usually don’t have. The successful ones have perhaps enough so that the devs can put food on their table, but not much else. Most of the apps are after Dayjob hobby projects. It’s hard to compete with those who have teams of paid staff.
Those people will either learn one day or they will end up in the same vicious cycle over and over again for the rest of their lives until they do learn the lesson or die. The only reason the blue sky process is better is because, at least currently, they only have the one server. If it ever actually federates, like it’s supposed to, then that point is completely moot. Because then they won’t know how to sign up for blue sky either.
Oh no, not the same thing I’ve been doing since the mid 90s! I might die if I migrate sites again! Or something.
Making a social network only usable by around 5% of the population and then complaining when only 5% of the population shows up is a pretty indicative attitude of why so many FOSS projects struggle to get widespread adoption. You don’t get to choose how tech literate the population is. You either make it more useable or you accept a limited audience.
Mastodon
Bsky federates. I follow several people from my Mastodon profile.
Edit: I should add a caveat here. Federation doesn’t work as smoothly as Threads yet. You have to use a bridge service: https://fed.brid.gy/
The bridge is necessary because BlueSky and Mastodon cannot federate, and they never will be able to. ActivityPub and ATProto are different protocols.
“Never” is a strong word. API translation is a technical hurdle, but rarely an insurmountable one. If Blue Sky wanted to add an ActivityPub interface to their platform, they probably could.
This issue isn’t technical per se; it’s a matter of priorities. Blue Sky doesn’t want to federate with Mastodon/Threads, because they want users to switch to their platform.
Oh, well that’s good anyway. Is it true that they only have like one major server? Because I’ve heard that, but I haven’t looked much into them, so I’m not sure if it’s still the case or not. To my understanding, they are meant to be a federated network, but really only have the one server.
Yeah this is still true as far as I know. Honestly this is probably what allowed BS to gain a foothold; I like mastodon too but asking new users to pick a server was always going to be a source of adoption friction.
AFAIK that’s still the case, yes. I don’t have a Bluesky (or Threads) account so I can’t confirm.
Has an aggressively unpleasant user base and nowhere near the blocking functionality that Bluesky has, which is essentially mandatory now for minorities on the internet. Not to mention an onboarding process that can confuse the tech literate, much less the average person.
This comment is not an invitation to talk about how actually it’s very simple and intuitive if you follow a 20 step process that relies on detailed knowledge of how federation works.
Don’t forget the disproportionate control individual mods have over the network due to the shared defederation lists. I was on a general purpose instance which found itself defederated from a large part of the network because a mastodon.art admin had disagreement with a mod on the one I was on.
Putting aside control and anecdotes, neither of which would be fair to comment on without more context and a lengthier discussion, this breaks the email metaphor a bit, doesn’t it?
The Fediverse is just like email, where we all talk to each other, except Outlook blocked Gmail because MS and Google had a fight during a meeting so you’re gonna have to migrate to Yahoo or learn to self-host.
That’s not necessarily a criticism, I just find it funny.
I think it’s easy to understand Mastodon, or any federated service, using a metaphor for a country or large place, where you can say “I want to move to X country” but then you have to actually pick a place IN that country to live, like a specific city or rural district. Once you decide on your instance, it’s really not that hard
As a progressive worldly usa person which instance should I choose?
Can or should it be tied to my lemmy.world instance somehow?
Thx
You dont need to explain email so federation does not seem to be the issue here IMO. The problem is money which FLOSS projects usually don’t have. The successful ones have perhaps enough so that the devs can put food on their table, but not much else. Most of the apps are after Dayjob hobby projects. It’s hard to compete with those who have teams of paid staff.
Those people will either learn one day or they will end up in the same vicious cycle over and over again for the rest of their lives until they do learn the lesson or die. The only reason the blue sky process is better is because, at least currently, they only have the one server. If it ever actually federates, like it’s supposed to, then that point is completely moot. Because then they won’t know how to sign up for blue sky either.
Oh no, not the same thing I’ve been doing since the mid 90s! I might die if I migrate sites again! Or something.
Making a social network only usable by around 5% of the population and then complaining when only 5% of the population shows up is a pretty indicative attitude of why so many FOSS projects struggle to get widespread adoption. You don’t get to choose how tech literate the population is. You either make it more useable or you accept a limited audience.
Clown take. “People should just get smart!”
95% of all American adults cannot use search functions in email.