SQLite simply stores those posts and that signed Merkle tree. The PDS account host server also has another SQLite DB with a list of its accounts.
They have fancier stuff in their appview server and relay server
Their promises of portability may ring empty but so far their lack of AI algorithm and ad feeds are what people actually come to Bluesky for
If you want federation, ActivityPub is there and ready to go. You could probably hack together a bidirectional Bluesky <-> Mastodon bridge without too much effort (requiring an account on BS to post from Mastodon) and enjoy the portability of your main account while also being able to follow your friends and such on BS.
I quite agree with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38445649
It really does show why engagement should never be monetised.
It's just full of fight videos, repackaged memes, controversial takes etc. all designed to get some extra money for the poster. Even VCs and the startup community gets in on it.
99% ultra-right wing political content with obscene amounts of overt racism, anti-semitism etc.
Even though when it asked for my interests politics wasn't even an option.
https://www.thousandeyes.com/blog/internet-report-twitter-to...
Twitter appears to be an outlier in that respect. Instead of displaying the usual post-acquisition stability, ThousandEyes’ data indicates that the number and frequency of outages did increase commensurate with the acquisition. If we compare the two periods (pre- and post-acquisition), it’s apparent that there were fewer and less frequent outages prior to the purchase.
And “more functionality”… I guess time continues marching forward so there are some new things, but nothing game changing IMO. The creator economy on there is nonexistent, and changing the color of the checkmarks from blue to grey seems like a lateral move.• Long-form content
• Video streaming
• Grok
• Ability to edit posts
• Bookmarks
• Communities
• Better verification system
• Encrypted direct messages
• Cashtag feature
• Bold and italic text formatting
• Open-sourced algorithm
• Premium features
• Improved search
• Improved analytics for content creators
• And most importantly, less First-Amendment violations in secret partnership with the federal government
And instead of censoring "secretly" in partnership with the US government they do so in partnership with the Indian government as well as individual Republican politicians.
Hard disagree. The platform is objectively much better than it was under Jack Dorsey.
> The algorithm isn't open enough that anybody can see if what it's doing matches the code.
Fair, but more is available than before.
> ...in partnership with the Indian government as well as individual Republican politicians.
Would you prefer X break India's laws, specifically Section 69A of the IT Act? I suppose they could do that and then the Indian government would shut them down in India.
Also, are you talking about X suspending Ken Klippenstein's account for doxxing JD Vance? X's rules explicitly state that doxxing people will result in a suspension, so maybe Klippenstein should have thought of that before posting Vance's home address and most of his social security number.
Here's X's policy against what Klippenstein did, which applies to everyone: https://help.x.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-informatio...
- Cool new features
- Encrypted direct messages
- Video streaming
- Ability to edit posts
- Communities (IDK what this but it sounds cool)
- Bookmarks
- Cashtag feature (?)
- Improved analytics for content creators
- Trivial decisions about policy
- Long-form content
- Bold and italic text formatting
- Untrue, or at least unverified
- Better verification system (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-confusion-and-risks-surrounding-twitters-verified-account-changes, https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/tech/musk-twitter-blue-check-mark/index.html)
- Open-sourced algorithm (https://www.wired.com/story/twitters-open-source-algorithm-is-a-red-herring/)
- Premium features (?)
- Improved search (?)
- Same shit different day
- Grok
Which, tbf, is a lot more cool features than I was giving them credit for! I still think the whole 'nazi' and 'arbitrary moderation' thing outweighs those changes by a lot, but they did add stuff.Most of the people on Bluesky that have moved are artists, academics, writers and creative folks that don't care about tech.
If they did care about decentralization they would be all going to Mastodon right now, but there isn't any traction there in the millions.
Bluesky hasn't released what their DAU/MAUs are but Mastodon's aren't that bad.
https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-24-2024-series-a https://mastodon-analytics.com
https://bsky.jazco.dev/stats https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.d...
[0] https://mastodon.social/@mastodonusercount/11327098336778135...
I think framing social networks with metrics like number of nodes or active daily users is inadequate and only designed to appeal to some VC/founder mode bros.
https://bskycharts.edavis.dev/edavis.dev/bskycharts.edavis.d...
Mastodon has dropped to 800K monthly actives and has no data on daily actives which I would assume that number would be even lower.
Not a good look for Mastodon, considering that huge drop of 400K monthly users on that active users chart and did not recover even after Elon's changes to X, the majority of X users in Brazil chose Bluesky and ignored Mastodon.
It’s all about the user experience. See also privacy and security.
The fact is we need an alternative to X because the current owner has done and will continue to do terrible things not just to the service but apparently on a personal and political level that is beyond distasteful to a HUGE chunk of the users (if not even greater than 50%)
And Threads isn't going to cut it for similar reasons.
So in an imperfect world Bluesky is what we get and it's a legit alternative that's better.
The fact a Mastodon<->Bluesky bridge exists says A LOT. Good luck ever getting something like that with X without paying a literal fortune for it.
My X is full of people having constant meltdowns or who are just always fighting others, no one really sharing anything interesting.
Haven't tried bluesky bc it was invite only (I assume it isn't anymore if you say it's accessible) and I didn't really care enough to ask for one from someone.
Bluesky literally just started and it already covers more things than mastodon ever did while providing a better UX without stupid technical limitations like not implementing global full text search.
Of course, if you’re earlier you have network effects, but Carface seems doggedly determined to compensate by driving the existing network away.
The point is, there's little reason to go to the clones, you just lose the network effects, as X is still clearly "the" place to post stuff, and where your identity is the strongest. Which is important given in actuality it's not such a walled garden with authoritarian rule throwing people out like Twitter was. Only when everyone can have their say, you end up with something that ACTUALLY represents the "town square". Blue Sky might also be the town square, but more akin to one of a closed soviet military town.