I don’t think there are any other Instances aside from the default bsky.social right now. It’s only federated in theory and essentially a closed platform until that changes. Pretty sad that it gets all the attention instead of Mastodon.
I’m not even sure what the word is to describe that mentality. The closest I think of is “willfully ignorant”, but that’s not quite it.
Basically people like you are blind to the reason as to why bluesky and not mastodon is getting all the twitter runaways.
And you’re blind to it, not because you’re incapable of seeing the reasons. You’re just unwilling to accept that those reasons ARE the reasons it’s happening this way.
Basically the 95% of society don’t give a shit about federation. It’s not a selling point, it’s a scary confusing distraction. Many of them probably went to sign up for mastodon, as they had heard of it…but then they found out:
“There are thousands of mastodons, and if you sign up on one, you can’t sign up on the other, and you can only talk to the people on your mastodon…oh, bluesky is just one service. You sign up, and you’re done. Oh, it’s even asking me if I want to connect with mastodon. So that means I never needed to connect to mastodon! And this one is just like twitter. I know this. The other one is scary. This one is what I like.”
And then you come in, correcting every wrong aspect of what they just said. You start using terms like fediverse, and instances, and federate, and they just give you blank stares.
They don’t give a shit about that. At all. At allllll. At allllllllllll.
I’m going to include a picture here. I took a picture of my wall while I was watching a hockey game. You’ll notice their twitter handles. But those handles are also accessable all across the net. That’s how the fediverse should work.
TonyBrownpxp. You’ll notice they don’t put the X logo in that graphic. They just put the handle, and assume the audience knows what to do. Now, Tony Brown isn’t a celebrity. He’s a hockey announcer for a Cleveland based AHL hockey team, the Cleveland Monsters. AHL is the farm system for NHL. So this is minor league hockey.
Hardley someone who anyone would instantly know the name Tony Brown. However, if you’re watching hockey, and you see the handle @TonyBrownPXP with no other context, as shown in this photo, you know how to contact them.
But, if he were to say, have a mastodon, it would have to be @TonyBrownPXP@mastodon.social
And furthermore, if @TonyBrownPXP@mastodon.world exists, that means you can’t just throw @TonyBrownPXP on the screen with a mastodon logo, because which @TonyBrownPXP IS it???
And so now your screenis just FILLED with text, all because handles aren’t handled universally on the fediverse. I’m personally signed up for 3 diffeeent fediverse services, all using Lost_My_Mind, but on 3 different instances. What if a 2nd person signs up Lost_My_Mind on a 4th instance? I have no way to prove that’s not me. And I don’t think anyone gives a shit enough about me to investigate if it WAS me. So anything they say, would in the minds of humans, be assosiated with me.
And while I won’t call TonyBrown a celebrity, it’s the same for celebrities, and guys like him. He encourages fan interaction during hockey games, and he refuses to call it X. He always says “Send your thoughts or questions to me on twitter, or I guess they call it X now, which is a stupid name, but send your questions to @TonyBrownPXP and we’ll address the best ones during game breaks and intermission!”
Says almost the same exact thing, almost word for word, always with the snide diss of twitter, every game.
Now I’ve never signed up for loops, or pixelfed, or peertube, or a lot of services. But when I signed up for the fediverse, it should have had me pick a username. Lost_My_Mind. Ok, now when I sign up to any service, Lemmy, or Pixelfed, or peertube, or anything else, Lost_My_Mind should be my handle.
And if someone ELSE tries signing up for Pixelfed, on a different instance, they can’t use Lost_My_Mind. Even though I don’t have a registered pixelfed account. Even though I don’t have an account on that other instance.
I’M Lost_My_Mind. Not you on another instance. But that’s not how the fediverse works. And because people don’t understand, or give a shit about any of that, they just go with what they know.
Right now, we’re in the early days of the fediverse. The experience should be centralized, while the underlaying services and protocols should be decentralized. Because right now, the whole thing isn’t decentralized. It’s fractured.
Look, I appreciate you pushing on the UX aspects of the fediverse here. But let me ask yout something. What’s your email address? Is it Lost_My_Mind? No? Oh, because it’s got an @whatever.com on the end? Why is that? Why don’t we have one global, centralized namespace for email usernames such that there’s only a single Lost_My_Mind in the whole world?
You do realize Bluesky also tacks on .bsky.social? (Though with a dot instead of a second @)
And even without other instances, ATProto already allows people to sign up using domains they own.
The closest you can get to using Lost_My_Mind as you Bluesky handle is by aquiring a domain like lost_my_mind.com. And that still wouldn’t prevent someone else from signing up using lost_my_mind.net.
And that’s before pointing out that Impersonation and mistaken identities isn’t a solved problem on twitter, either.
Bluesky is succeeding because its a smooth and familiar experience that obfuscates away the complexity of how it works.
Absolutely nothing about how the ActivityPub network works conceptually prevents it from being an equally smooth experience, given the work were put in.
Your first six paragraphs hit the mark, but the following rant about the “username univerasility problem” ain’t it.
I like it. That is absolutely how Mastodon and Fediverse in general should have been prepared for the X-odus. But instead it all ends up over at Bluesky where it will inevitably turn to dogshit.
I don’t know what tailscale is, but based on the context, it sounds like what I mean. As long as it’s handling JUST the handles.
Because realistically, from a computer perspective I would still be @Lost_My_Mind@Lemmy.World from a purely technical behind the scenes standpoint.
All my posts, and such would be hosted on Lemmy.World but from a human perspective, I would just be @Lost_My_Mind
So if you mention me, or message me, you’d be using @Lost_My_Mind but the technicals would take that handle, and say "ok, where do I deliver this? Ah, yes, it’s registered at @Lost_My_Mind@Lemmy.World
So thats where the computers would deliver that message. Even though you, the user, don’t even need to know which instance I’m registered at. No need to display that. Make it FEEL centralized, while actually making it decentralized.
I don’t think there are any other Instances aside from the default bsky.social right now. It’s only federated in theory and essentially a closed platform until that changes. Pretty sad that it gets all the attention instead of Mastodon.
Mastedon and the Fediverse need to get their shit together and make it easy for hyper casual basic people to use and understand.
Bluesky doesn’t have any of that.
I’m not even sure what the word is to describe that mentality. The closest I think of is “willfully ignorant”, but that’s not quite it.
Basically people like you are blind to the reason as to why bluesky and not mastodon is getting all the twitter runaways.
And you’re blind to it, not because you’re incapable of seeing the reasons. You’re just unwilling to accept that those reasons ARE the reasons it’s happening this way.
Basically the 95% of society don’t give a shit about federation. It’s not a selling point, it’s a scary confusing distraction. Many of them probably went to sign up for mastodon, as they had heard of it…but then they found out:
And then you come in, correcting every wrong aspect of what they just said. You start using terms like fediverse, and instances, and federate, and they just give you blank stares.
They don’t give a shit about that. At all. At allllll. At allllllllllll.
I’m going to include a picture here. I took a picture of my wall while I was watching a hockey game. You’ll notice their twitter handles. But those handles are also accessable all across the net. That’s how the fediverse should work.
TonyBrownpxp. You’ll notice they don’t put the X logo in that graphic. They just put the handle, and assume the audience knows what to do. Now, Tony Brown isn’t a celebrity. He’s a hockey announcer for a Cleveland based AHL hockey team, the Cleveland Monsters. AHL is the farm system for NHL. So this is minor league hockey.
Hardley someone who anyone would instantly know the name Tony Brown. However, if you’re watching hockey, and you see the handle @TonyBrownPXP with no other context, as shown in this photo, you know how to contact them.
But, if he were to say, have a mastodon, it would have to be @TonyBrownPXP@mastodon.social
And furthermore, if @TonyBrownPXP@mastodon.world exists, that means you can’t just throw @TonyBrownPXP on the screen with a mastodon logo, because which @TonyBrownPXP IS it???
And so now your screenis just FILLED with text, all because handles aren’t handled universally on the fediverse. I’m personally signed up for 3 diffeeent fediverse services, all using Lost_My_Mind, but on 3 different instances. What if a 2nd person signs up Lost_My_Mind on a 4th instance? I have no way to prove that’s not me. And I don’t think anyone gives a shit enough about me to investigate if it WAS me. So anything they say, would in the minds of humans, be assosiated with me.
And while I won’t call TonyBrown a celebrity, it’s the same for celebrities, and guys like him. He encourages fan interaction during hockey games, and he refuses to call it X. He always says “Send your thoughts or questions to me on twitter, or I guess they call it X now, which is a stupid name, but send your questions to @TonyBrownPXP and we’ll address the best ones during game breaks and intermission!”
Says almost the same exact thing, almost word for word, always with the snide diss of twitter, every game.
Now I’ve never signed up for loops, or pixelfed, or peertube, or a lot of services. But when I signed up for the fediverse, it should have had me pick a username. Lost_My_Mind. Ok, now when I sign up to any service, Lemmy, or Pixelfed, or peertube, or anything else, Lost_My_Mind should be my handle.
And if someone ELSE tries signing up for Pixelfed, on a different instance, they can’t use Lost_My_Mind. Even though I don’t have a registered pixelfed account. Even though I don’t have an account on that other instance.
I’M Lost_My_Mind. Not you on another instance. But that’s not how the fediverse works. And because people don’t understand, or give a shit about any of that, they just go with what they know.
Right now, we’re in the early days of the fediverse. The experience should be centralized, while the underlaying services and protocols should be decentralized. Because right now, the whole thing isn’t decentralized. It’s fractured.
Look, I appreciate you pushing on the UX aspects of the fediverse here. But let me ask yout something. What’s your email address? Is it Lost_My_Mind? No? Oh, because it’s got an @whatever.com on the end? Why is that? Why don’t we have one global, centralized namespace for email usernames such that there’s only a single Lost_My_Mind in the whole world?
You do realize Bluesky also tacks on
.bsky.social? (Though with a dot instead of a second @)And even without other instances, ATProto already allows people to sign up using domains they own.
The closest you can get to using Lost_My_Mind as you Bluesky handle is by aquiring a domain like
lost_my_mind.com. And that still wouldn’t prevent someone else from signing up usinglost_my_mind.net.And that’s before pointing out that Impersonation and mistaken identities isn’t a solved problem on twitter, either.
Bluesky is succeeding because its a smooth and familiar experience that obfuscates away the complexity of how it works.
Absolutely nothing about how the ActivityPub network works conceptually prevents it from being an equally smooth experience, given the work were put in.
Your first six paragraphs hit the mark, but the following rant about the “username univerasility problem” ain’t it.
So OIDC for ActivityPub.
I like it. That is absolutely how Mastodon and Fediverse in general should have been prepared for the X-odus. But instead it all ends up over at Bluesky where it will inevitably turn to dogshit.
I have no idea what OIDC is…so, maybe?
https://openid.net/developers/how-connect-works/
Centralized identity service like how you can use a google/github account to sign into services like Tailscale.
I don’t know what tailscale is, but based on the context, it sounds like what I mean. As long as it’s handling JUST the handles.
Because realistically, from a computer perspective I would still be @Lost_My_Mind@Lemmy.World from a purely technical behind the scenes standpoint.
All my posts, and such would be hosted on Lemmy.World but from a human perspective, I would just be @Lost_My_Mind
So if you mention me, or message me, you’d be using @Lost_My_Mind but the technicals would take that handle, and say "ok, where do I deliver this? Ah, yes, it’s registered at @Lost_My_Mind@Lemmy.World
So thats where the computers would deliver that message. Even though you, the user, don’t even need to know which instance I’m registered at. No need to display that. Make it FEEL centralized, while actually making it decentralized.