Mastodon and Pixelfed got a short mention on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
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Easier to set up/use, more familiar, way more users currently.
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Yeah this is my relationship with pixelfed. I spend like 30min a week on it tops looking at photography
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Some things are incredibly appealing to everyone and also bad for society. We have to treat those things responsibly.
Recommendation algorithms can be useful, to assist you in discovering content. As a tool that you choose to use. If I can select a person that I like listening to and get a list of other people who I may be interested in (assuming that the algorithm is simply matching me to similar peers and not also adding in some "also Elon/Bezos/whoever really wants you to see these guys" skew)... that would be a useful tool.
However, the recommendation algorithms should not be used to make the second-by-second decision about what you see next. The next item in your feed should always be there because of a decision that you make, not as a means of "maximizing engagement".
Of course people like these features, these algorithms are literally trained to maximize how likable their recommendations are.
It's like how people like heroin because it perfectly fits our opioid receptors. The problem is that you can't simply trust that the person giving you heroin will always have your best interests in mind.
Recommendation algorithms are a useful tool but, only when used in moderation. Attaching a recommendation algorithm directly to your brain via a curated content feed is incredibly unhealthy for both the individual and society.
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We get what you’re saying but we’re talking about the experience some people want, private corporate owned algorithm or otherwise.
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In November last year, Bluesky had more than 3 million daily users in the US alone. According to fedidb, the Fediverse as a whole has 1.5 million monthly users globally.
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They're good at predicting what people want to see, yes. But that isn't the real problem.
The problem isn't that they predict what you want to see, it is that they use that information to give you results that are 90% what you want to see and 10% of results that the owner of the algorithm wants you to see.
X uses that to mix in alt-right feeds. Google uses it to mix in messages from the highest bidder on their ad network and Amazon uses it to mix in product recommendations for their own products.
You can't know what they're adding to the feed or how much is real recommendations that are based on your needs and wants and how much is artificially boosted content based on the needs and wants of the owner of the algorithm.
Is your next TikTok really the next highest piece of recommended content or is it something that's being boosted on the behalf of someone else? You can't know.
This has become an incredibly important topic since people are now using these systems to drive political outcomes which have real effects on society.
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Picking a server is weird and scary.
As a scientist, I would be cautious of jumping to a conclusion and beating ourselves up for it until we have crystal clear proof that that is the specific thing that's turning people away.
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I don't think we need a full-on study to show that an additional barrier to entry hurts adoption.
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Treating it responsibly in this case would mean actually offering a recommendation algorithm that is free of corporate interest, then. To go along with your own simile, you can't really go up to a junkie and say "Hey, you should really consider giving up heroin and having a salad instead. It's better for you." and expect it to be a convincing argument. Which is why Bluesky is succeeding and Mastodon isn't.
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Bluesky could really do us a favour and turn on ActivityPub
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And the reason is that Mastodon refuses to provide the service most people want from a platform like this: a well-tuned suggestion algorithm.
Why are you ignoring the fact that Bluesky has a MUCH larger marketing budget AND it gets basically free unlimited (barely critical) coverage from the tech press.
You are drawing conclusions left and right on incomplete information and it destroys any semblance of a point you are trying to make.
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Damn given that Bluesky has millions to burn on marketing I would say the Fediverse is clowning on Bluesky seeing as it the Fediverse has a $0 marketing budget.
For all the money and prestige Bluesky has access to, they still have only managed to double our size? That is kind of sad really, it must be because they keep adding things people actually don't want.
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Not that one thing alone, obviously. But it's a big part of it.
We can call it a hypothesis if that helps.
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You’re very fixated on something we all agree with and missing the thrust of the point.
People want an algorithm, whether it’s parasitic or manipulative or whatever. Most people do not care enough to object. They will pick it over a mastodon/lemmy/etc experience to get curation. That’s all we’re saying
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It also means decoupling the recommendation system from people's feeds.
Having a "you may like this" section is a lot less abusable than "the next item in your doomscroll is <recommendation>".
Bluesky is just another Twitter. Everything that happened to Twitter can happen to Bluesky. It's not fundamentally changing anything except trading Elon for a different owner.
It's not a bad change, people want Twitter after all... but it isn't fixing any problems in the underlying incentive structures or algorithm control.
The core problem is that curated feeds allow the owner to substitute their recommendations in place of recommendations that would interest you.
Until the owner can't do that, the social network is always one sale away from being the next Twitter/Truth Social.
Bluesky is fixing social media by changing the owner, Mastodon/ActivityPub is fixing social media by getting rid of the owner.
I think the latter is the better choice for how to structure these things.
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Better marketing, better UI, lots of users, and plenty of non-political content.
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It's no different than signing up for an email account
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What's non-political content, Lemmy?
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Email? Do you mean Gmail?
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We're the non-political ones
- everyone on the Fediverse who keywordblocks everything political
