Hi everyone.
I’m new to these kinds of innovative platforms, and I’ve come across Mastodon and Bluesky in particular. I’ve realized that both use different but equally free and open-source protocols, so my question is: are there any substantial differences between the two social networks? Should I choose one over the other?
Thanks for your replies, and have a great day.
I’m not some big technical guy, but there is a pretty fundamental difference in how the protocols work. Mastodon uses ActivityPub, Bluesky uses the AT Protocol.
ActivityPub is like email, it’s an exchange protocol. So basically you create a link between two accounts by “following” and that says “whenever A posts something, deliver it in this format to B”.
ATProto is a bit more complex. It’s based around the idea of nodes. A node in this sense is basically a pile of letters. If I decide to post something, that letter gets thrown into the pile with some info like user tags, etc. Another user somewhere else who follows me is in essence just telling their client “pull out all the letters that A has thrown into this pile and shown them to me”. And then you have a front facing client that displays the result of that filter in a convenient way. On the one hand, this is why topic lists (I think called collections?) are much easier/better in Bluesky because at the end of the day it’s just another filter onto the pile, whereas with an ActivityPub based collection would be a bit more complicated.
In practice what this basically means is that Bluesky is federated in name only. If the Bluesky board decided one day that you couldn’t post about cats, but I really wanted to post about cats, I would have to then host the node, the filtering apparatus, and (potentially) the front end. The node hosting specifically is the most technically onerous. If I wanted the Catsky node to federate with the Bluesky node, I would need to set up a tunnel between the two, then posts from Bluesky that the Catsky users would want to see would also be deposited into my node meaning my storage requirements would go up quickly. Conversely, you can run a stable Mastodon instance on a raspberry pi because you only need to be able to store what you want to see, not the entirety of the platform. I personally have only heard of one other successfully hosted node (Blacksky for Black Twitter refugees) and I’m not sure it federates with Bluesky.
In the end, Bluesky works a lot like OG Twitter, which was just a lump of storage and the actual product was the API, but with a couple ropes dangling out the sides with a sign saying “go ahead, hook up, and federate, we don’t mind”. This is unsurprising as Bluesky and the ATProto were made in essence by the OG Twitter people
This is one of the best overviews of the differences I’ve seen. Nicely done.
The only thing I want to add having played around a bit with Bluesky before eventually deciding it wasn’t for me is that, unlike Mastodon, Bluesky does use a series of algorithms you can choose from when you initially sign up that curate your feed for you.
Basically from a purely user experience, the major difference is the sign up of an instance on Mastodon (which technically exists on Bluesky, but doesn’t really exist in practice), and the more apparent difference is the lack of an algorithmic feed on Mastodon.
What I like about the Fediverse is that I am in complete control of my feed. There are no algorithms trying to analyze my behavior to predict what I like. I prefer to have people recommend me shows, movies, books, articles, subjects, etc., and that’s what I get on Federated Platforms.
This does mean initially though my feed is just filled with a chronological ordering of hashtags I’ve followed by selecting interests during sign up, and thusly it takes some additional effort to setup and personalize when compared to centralized platforms.
It’ll take a while before people wean themselves off the abusive relationships inherent to centralized social media, but imho, Federated Platforms will eventually become as ubiquitous as RSS feeds and wikis. Quietly everywhere, not flashy at all, but running the best parts of the web.
EDIT: Removal of repetitive wording.