curious_cat_163 14 days ago

This collection of starter packs might be useful:

https://github.com/stevendborrelli/bluesky-tech-starter-pack...

  • jessmartin 14 days ago

    Highly recommend the starter packs for finding people!

    • yen223 14 days ago

      Starter packs are such a cool and obvious idea for onboarding new users. Probably won't be long before the other sites introduce something similar.

  • SanjayMehta 14 days ago

    This is great. Is there something like this for Mastodon as well?

    • sphars 13 days ago

      I would take a look at Fedi.Directory[0], a directory of accounts to follow based on category, and curated by humans.

      [0]: https://fedi.directory/

      • aspect0545 11 days ago

        I didn’t know about this, thanks for sharing!

    • krapp 13 days ago

      Unfortunately not, as far as I'm aware.

  • consumer451 13 days ago

    Here is a super useful tool to copy Starter Pack users into a List, combine Lists, and more.

    Lists are great because you can use them as feeds that show the posts from only those users.

    https://nws-bot.us/bskyStarterPack.php

  • IAmGraydon 14 days ago

    Wow that’s great. Thanks!

  • atfgull 13 days ago

    This is great!

Aachen 14 days ago

I see a lot of people on Mastodon posting jokes about Twitter users moving to another centralised and venture capital-backed platform, like that "this time it will be different for sure!". I haven't read up on it myself so don't know what to think. Can someone burst my bubble on this?

Edit: saw a lot of valid responses, thanks! My question is answered and I might sign up on bsky as well if I get bored on Mastodon or want to connect with someone there :)

  • schwax 14 days ago

    IMO Bluesky (really atproto) is decentralized along the axes that matter, while Mastodon is decentralized along the axes that don't. It's sort of a figure-ground inversion in thinking about a social media protocol so I think a lot of the criticism is coming from people who haven't taken any time to understand it.

    It's an open protocol, but more like the www than email. You can port your identity to another host at any time. You can self host if you want. You have complete control over how your chosen feed algorithm aggregates posts from the firehose. If you want to make a competing service to Bluesky you can even do that, and it will still interoperate with all the Bluesky users.

    Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator you want mediating your experience. Mastodon is decentralized in the sense that it breaks the platform up into smaller fiefdoms; Bluesky is decentralized in the sense that you retain control over your own experience.

    Some recommended reading on Bluesky/atproto:

    https://bsky.app/profile/laurenshof.online/post/3la5j3qgqvo2...

    https://fediversereport.com/a-conceptual-model-of-atproto-an...

    https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers

    https://atproto.com/guides/faq

    • Aachen 14 days ago

      > You can port your identity to another host at any time. You can self host if you want. You have complete control over how your chosen feed algorithm aggregates posts from the firehose. If you want to make a competing service to Bluesky you can even do that, and it will still interoperate with all the Bluesky users.

      > Whereas with Mastodon, when you pick an instance you're essentially picking which benevolent dictator

      Wait what? All of the benefits you mention for Bluesky apply equally to Mastodon (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right? What's the difference you're pointing out?

      • steveklabnik 13 days ago

        > What's the difference you're pointing out?

        They don't equally apply.

        > (in both cases you can host your own thing if you like), and the latter (downside) applies to Bluesky when you sign up with the official server right?

        You can host things, sure, but atproto (this is really more about the protocol than the application layer) has true account portability, whereas Mastodon does not. Moving your account on Mastodon account has multiple options, all of which are closer to redirects: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/

        This all also requires cooperation from your host; if you're kicked out, then you can't do any of this. A profile redirect only stays up as long as that host is up.

        Whereas with atproto, you can move between PDSes, and nothing will change with regards to your social graph. If your old PDS kicks you out or dies, you can recreate all of your data onto your new PDS by replaying it off of the relay.

        That is, with Mastodon, your identity and your data storage are linked, so changing your identity requires changing your data storage, and changing your data storage requires changing your identity. But with atproto, these two things are separated, so changing one does not require changing the other.

        Even if you sign up via bsky.app, there isn't even one official server: they partitioned their userbase among a bunch of different PDSes.

        • abdullahkhalids 13 days ago

          > Moving your account on Mastodon account has multiple options, all of which are closer to redirects

          My understanding is that Mastodon wants to build the feature where you truly move your data into a new identity. They have the export working, but not import. So ultimately this will work as well.

          • palata 12 days ago

            > So ultimately this will work as well.

            Which is another way to say that it doesn't. Great if Mastodon ends up adding that, but it's not fair to say "we also have it, but in the future".

      • schwax 14 days ago

        I was replying to a post claiming Bluesky is centralized, since it's not, really. Maybe I should have left Mastodon out of it :)

        I think they're both good, but different tools for different jobs. Mastodon is good for tighter knit community. I think Bluesky has potential to be a decentralized replacement for social media with n >> dunbar's number.

        The difference is in the protocol. Bluesky's atproto is IMO very clever and well designed. It's not every day I read something and think to myself, "I wish I'd thought of that!" I'd encourage anybody whose interest is piqued to dig in and read up.

  • Gigachad 14 days ago

    Personally I don't really care that Bluesky is centralized, I actually prefer it since it's easier to use and there isn't the risk that my random server admin is going to go rouge or shut down the server like you get with Mastodon.

    Twitter was pretty much fine until Musk started shitting it up so something that is pretty much like Twitter pre Musk is all I want. Bluesky fills that position well.

    • schwax 14 days ago

      I see why people might say it but "Bluesky is centralized" isn't an especially accurate criticism. The protocol allows essentially any aspect of Bluesky to be decentralized, up to and including starting a competing service that still interoperates with Bluesky users—no permission required.

  • rectang 14 days ago

    There’s a deep lesson in the victory of Bluesky over Mastodon about the general inability of Open Source projects to provide a simple, intuitive end user experience. It’s unsurprising for those of us who have participated in Open Souce for a while, but Bluesky vs. Mastodon will become the canonical example.

    • serial_dev 14 days ago

      Where is this “victory” of bluesky over mastodon? IMO they are both losers and most likely stay losers (as in never be anywhere close to twitter).

      Even the accounts posted here, signed up in 2023, posted on bluesky three times.

      If anything, I at least know some people who seem to have found some small community amongst the mastodongers.

      • rectang 14 days ago

        I suppose that time will tell. Twitter is in the midst of an experiment to see if social network effects will keep users around despite unlimited levels of political hostility, abuse, and algorithmic shenanigans from the ownership. My impression is that there’s a limit and we’ve crossed it post election as Bluesky has been gaining a million users each day, but my bias is showing.

        • zarzavat 13 days ago

          Twitter is a global social network. Clearly Musk made some very questionable business decisions e.g. changing the name, the aborted attempt to ban links to outside profiles, etc, but that period seems to have settled, and the main reason for leaving now is the rightward politicization.

          If you live in the US then yes that's a seriously compelling reason to leave, but a large number of Twitter's users are not using English, they're not involved in US politics, and don't have much reason to switch unless Musk seriously upsets the operation of the platform.

          • rectang 12 days ago

            Whatever. The original point I was trying to make was a comparison of usability between Bluesky and Mastodon. But everything has to be about Elon Musk, so here we are.

        • MaxHoppersGhost 12 days ago

          > despite unlimited levels of political hostility, abuse, and algorithmic shenanigans from the ownership

          This was happening before Musk bought it but now that it’s coming from the socially unacceptable side of the political spectrum people don’t like it

          • supplied_demand 12 days ago

            It is now a private company, with an owner who openly campaigned for a particular candidate and is now expected to take a role in that candidate's administration.

            You can see the difference, right?

            • MaxHoppersGhost 12 days ago

              One is certainly more visibly political while the other is much harder to see. Seems like even you are confused by it.

              • supplied_demand 12 days ago

                So, you do see a difference. Meanwhile, you still ignore the difference in being a public vs. private company and the necessary disclosures that come from that difference.

                That said, please open my eyes. I have yet to see you provide anything to support your stance that the publicly-traded, pre-Elon version of Twitter was equally as active in pushing a political agenda as the current version.

                It's ok to admit, even if the guy is on your team.

                • ipaddr 11 days ago

                  The recovered documents that showed communication between the whitehouse and twitter resulting in censorship around covid and other issues like the laptop from hunter biden. It was political, hidden and many will say eviler before Musk.

    • krapp 13 days ago

      Wasn't Bluesky developed in house by a paid team at Twitter, who also developed the protocol? And isn't its UX essentially a clone of Twitter's, which itself is the result of millions of dollars in R&D and proprietary labor? And isn't the existing familiarity with Twitter the only reason Bluesky's interface is "intuitive?"

      A lot of the rough edges for Mastodon come from it actually being decentralized, and the extra complexity that brings. There is for all intents and purposes only one Bluesky instance, and there will likely only ever be one instance due to network effects. It's open source in the same way Reddit or HN are open source - the code is available, but there is only one implementation that matters.

      I don't think you're entirely wrong - Mastodon could definitely do with better UX, but let's not pretend the playing field is level here. Bluesky's success is very much the result of corporate and proprietary development culture, advertising and startup hype, not of open source culture.

      • Kye 13 days ago

        There's one Bluesky appview and so far one public relay run by Bluesky.[0] There are over 1000 independent AT protocol instances and numerous independent appviews.

        [0] Technically two if you count the development site.

        [0a] New appview just dropped and it's Discord https://bsky.app/profile/samuel.bsky.team/post/3lbfdkqinl22z

      • wannacboatmovie 13 days ago

        HN is not open source. Only the base software package is, the 'secret sauce' is proprietary.

      • g8oz 13 days ago

        Don't know why you're being downvoted, every point is bang on.

  • jimbob45 14 days ago

    It's the Team Fortress 2 paradox all over again. TF2 famously had a number of games all coming to dismantle its market dominance and each of them failed miserably. This might have seemed puzzling given TF2's somewhat antiquated gameplay and maps. It turns out that the magic sauce of TF2 was never the gameplay but instead the dogged and disciplined developer support from Valve over the years. For the latest example, look no further than Overwatch 2 killing itself with a greedy business model which, again, had nothing to do with the core game.

    Likewise, Twitter is a very simple website to clone and compete with. Resisting the temptation to censor, putting in the effort to establish a non-exploitative business model, etc, is something that no one else has been able to do.

    • binary132 14 days ago

      I really think features, support, and functionality are secondary or tertiary effects at best, with the network-effect, first-to-market, winner-takes-all type mindshare stuff very very far ahead of them in impact. This also vaguely implies that features must be at least 10x better to make a meaningful difference.

    • Sateeshm 13 days ago

      TF2 is still popular mainly because of the amazing gameplay.

  • yen223 14 days ago

    If you're worried about your content on Bluesky or whatever getting hijacked, you should consider POSSE: https://indieweb.org/POSSE

    (One of the strengths of Bluesky over X is that Bluesky currently doesn't punish people who link away from the site)

  • griomnib 14 days ago

    I think it’s mistaken. You can run your own bluesky server, I’m meaning to get around to it but seems fairly straight forward:

    https://atproto.com/guides/self-hosting

    When I tried to install mastodon it downloaded literally hundreds of random dependencies, there was no way I could verify the security of it. Real shitshow imho.

    • Aachen 14 days ago

      What I hear is that there was an outage that took all of bsky down, as well as centralised moderation. Correct me if I'm wrong, or if it's still in the works, but it sounds like valid criticism when people say that demonstrates it functions as a centralised platform

      Haven't tried self-hosting Mastodon since I was looking for a social platform and not a new hobby. There's lots of hosters to choose from though, including the usual suspects like German Tchncs and French La Quadrature du Net (they also host other alternatives to big tech platforms like peertube)

      • steveklabnik 13 days ago

        > What I hear is that there was an outage that took all of bsky down, as well as centralised moderation.

        "all of" is accurate only in the sense that there's one major appview right now, but it wouldn't take down all of the independent PDS hosts. Anyone using an alternative appview wouldn't have been affected.

        There is centralized moderation for the bluesky application, but not at the protocol level.

      • griomnib 14 days ago

        Honestly I found starting my own mastodon server less work than trying to figure which of somebody else’s servers to use.

        I’m not sure as to the future of bluesky, but they are committed to having a distributed network, and have been before they even launched.

        I think claims to the contrary are sour grapes.

    • g-b-r 14 days ago

      https://mastodon.social/@_elena/113366551082791729

      • griomnib 14 days ago

        The full thread has a lot of speculation without basis in fact (eg why a given VC decided to invest in bsky), and the primary technical argument involves some theoretical issues vis-a-vis rebuilding the network if 25%+ of users decide to migrate out.

        I don’t put that much stock in such critiques when a project is still evolving, learning lessons, and most importantly growing.

        Most of the complaints coming from the mastodon crowd feel more like emacs vs vim “debates” of yesteryear.

    • wannacboatmovie 13 days ago

      > it downloaded literally hundreds of random dependencies, there was no way I could verify the security of it.

      You just described any modern shitware that uses npm.

  • spindlewurm 14 days ago

    Mastodon users are really not happy that there's an alternative that might actually give users data sovereignty, wresting power away from people whose only way of relating to others is by exerting control over them.

    • kemotep 14 days ago

      Can you explain the differences in the “data sovereignty” story that bluesky does better than Mastodon?

      I never see these discussions on bluesky or mastodon only here on Hacker News but it almost is never elaborated just that bluesky’s is better.

  • duxup 14 days ago

    I’m open to the possibility that Bluesky will go “bad” in some way.

    Still not opposed to trying.

    Gave up twitter long ago anyway.

  • julianeon 14 days ago

    Products go through lifecycles. I don't need to use them for their whole lifetimes, just while they are viable.

    Many of us have probably experienced this with at least one major platform: Facebook. A score of years ago, it was considered cool. New platforms have taken their place: in fact, for a certain audience, Twitter was once the cool place they went to after fleeing Facebook.

    For certain purposes, FB is dead. Same for Twitter. Now it's Bluesky's turn. It doesn't need to last for a century to be worth it.

    • Aachen 14 days ago

      It is sad, though, that you have to rebuild again after something like Facebook falls out of favor. Contacts get lost. I guess people will move to newer technologies than Mastodon as well, but so long as the concept is valid and the software maintained, transitioning to another instance is a feature of the system. I hear it has its issues but in general, you publish some redirect on your old profile (there's a button for doing it in your account settings) and then all followers will switch to the new location. You shouldn't have to start over from scratch in a normal case as migration is a foreseen situation

    • whywhywhywhy 13 days ago

      > Same for Twitter.

      Dunno if they’re just lying but they keep claiming they’re breaking usage records

  • rsynnott 13 days ago

    Besides everything else, there are only so many insane billionaires of sufficient insanity to buy and ruin a social network. Like, Dorsey was pretty odd, but that wasn't sufficient to totally ruin Twitter. Lightning, one might think, is somewhat unlikely to strike twice, and thus a realistic worst-case future for Bluesky is, more or less, old-Twitter.

    Like, would I depend on Bluesky for anything important? No, of course not, that would be silly. But for use as a social network, it's sufficient, for now (I'm splitting my time between it and Mastodon; Bluesky is, generally, more _fun_.)

  • jeanlucas 13 days ago

    I kinda agree with that take, I just wanna bet on a new space, reset my algorithmic recommendations, plus find new accounts to read.

  • groby_b 14 days ago

    I haven't seen those, mostly because finding people on Mastodon is impossible ;)

    Maybe it will be different, maybe it won't. But the people moving to bsky care more about usability than they care about federation. They're not saying "this time will be different", they're picking a platform they feel comfortable using and don't care about VC money or not.

    If that doesn't align with your values, maybe you don't want to join them. Because, yes, bsky is investor-financed, and at some point they'll need money. You might not agree with how they'll make that money, and it will be indeed no different. Your bubble is right on that.

  • SideburnsOfDoom 13 days ago

    > "this time it will be different for sure!".

    This summer might be nice like last summer, but that doesn't mean that you a) need to believe that summer will last for ever or b) must pretend that it's not summer over there now.

    In other words, who knows how long it will be good, enjoy it while it is and then move on.

    yeah, they'll be pressed to turn a profit sooner or later. Consequences will flow from that.

  • jazzyjackson 14 days ago

    Mastadonians are being total sore losers , they're so proud that they're actually decentralized and self hosted (even tho most users are on mastadon.social)

    IMO bluesky being a clone of Twitter in its UX means that you're going to get the same social dynamics, just a different group in charge of moderation decisions.

    Bluesky is supposed to offer a different architecture of allowing users to decide what they see via shared blocklists and labeling services, but they still regularly ban right wingers, trolls, and griefers from having an identifier on their servers, and since there's no one hosting an alternate appview, it's Pretty Damned Centralized (tm) for the time being.

    • broodbucket 14 days ago

      >they're so proud that they're actually decentralized and self hosted (even tho most users are on mastadon.social)

      Sorry, is any of that supposed to be wrong? People who use a decentralised platform aren't going to be fans of a new, mostly-centralised platform, I don't see how that's being sore losers. I also don't think most people on the Fediverse expect mainstream adoption any time soon, and many don't want it either.

      • llamaimperative 14 days ago

        They’re saying the talk about being distributed but generally congregate heavily on one (centralized) instance

        • broodbucket 14 days ago

          Being on a large instance doesn't mean you don't care about decentralisation, you can still choose to migrate to a different instance if you want. The whole point is you're not locked in to one vendor and you can move if you want to, not that everyone should have to live on their own island

          • llamaimperative 13 days ago

            Sure… but you can see why it makes it hard to care (and in particular stomach the complexity of coming onboard)

    • andrei_says_ 14 days ago

      Does Bluesky manipulate one’s feed or does it let it be based on the user’s subscriptions’ posts posted in reverse chronological order, filtered by the user’s preferences? Like Mastodon does?

      • yen223 14 days ago

        Bluesky lets you configure your feeds, or add new ones: https://bsky.app/feeds

        Default Bluesky has the "Discover" feed and the "Following" feed. The "Discover" feed is the equivalent of the algorithmic "For you" feed in X, but you can always unpin it.

        The "Following" feed is close to what you want I think.

      • citizenkeen 14 days ago

        Your “following” is reverse chronological.

    • Aachen 14 days ago

      I don't see one or the other as having won or lost. I don't know anyone on bsky and various people on Mastodon, also before joining Mastodon about a year ago, but hear bsky is bigger on the whole. Probably a regional thing, and part of what I seek on this type of platform is local people and news. Heard of an open day of the Effelsberg radio telescope for example, which was a really nice experience and I'm not sure by what other means I could have learned of it (following all places of interest in a large radius separately perhaps? How would discovery of new places work?). It simply fulfills its purpose for me rather than being a "total sore loser"

      I also really enjoy the inclusivity features like content warnings, filters, and alt texts. Didn't know I'd want these but it has been super nice around the USA election period, or when videos don't load on mobile data you can just read the text and know whether to bother with further attempts. Dunno if bsky has feature parity there or if people make use of it. My Mastodon instance in particular is quite... I don't want to say strict, but there's a good culture about it

    • black_puppydog 14 days ago

      Somehow the tone of your first paragraph doesn't match the content of the other two. They make it seem like the Mastodonians are pretty much Right™

    • threeseed 14 days ago

      > they still regularly ban right wingers

      No. There are plenty of conservatives on Bluesky and Threads.

      They get banned when they cross the line and start being deliberately antagonistic.

adamgordonbell 14 days ago

I've just started using my account, but follow me:

https://bsky.app/profile/adamgordonbell.bsky.social

I have a podcast about software development, corecursive.com, and I also share other interesting things I'm up to.

  • hehehheh 12 days ago

    Well that Fargate article looks interesting. I had no idea there was a serverless pod management system you can talk to with tools like k9!

    • adamgordonbell 12 days ago

      Thanks! yeah, k9 is pretty cool. It's more that fargate in EKS looks like normal k8s than anyhting else, but thanks for the follow.

sli 14 days ago

New versions of the same old social media will never fix the problems of social media.

  • frankhorrigan 14 days ago

    You just have to ride the wave with social media sites. Same as dating apps. Use them before they rot.

    • grvdrm 12 days ago

      Absolutely correct. Make the network you want before it gets lost in the noise.

    • jeanlucas 13 days ago

      Yeah, I really don't think Bluesky will be that different and when it matters they will find a way to enshitificate it.

      But I love to get new accounts to follow and good content.

  • happytoexplain 14 days ago

    Yes, but asking people not to use social media is not constructive. I don't use any, but I understand why people do, psychologically speaking. It's inevitable. The least they can do is migrate to whichever seems least enshittified at the moment.

  • rsynnott 13 days ago

    Sure, but for those of us who enjoyed old-Twitter, eh, it's better than nothing.

    • fsflover 13 days ago

      Mastodon is far from nothing.

brokegrammer 8 days ago

I write about web development topics concerning Python, Django, and Javascript: https://bsky.app/profile/joshkaramuth.com

Btw, I've never been a social media person and was wondering how you guys get followers on such platforms. Care to share tips?

jarko27 10 days ago

Definitely can recommend pragmatic engineer blog profile

https://bsky.app/profile/gergely.pragmaticengineer.com

You may find there stories about software engineering, tech companies, tech jobs market and more.

Gergely just recently joined Bluesky, so at least for me it's minus one reason to open Twitter.

stackghost 14 days ago

I'm so glad to see an influx of tech and security related accounts on bsky.

When I was last using bsky a lot under a different account, it was a much smaller site and a lot of the major posters seemed to mostly just be involved with interpersonal drama.

ks2048 14 days ago

A few tech/ML related that I've found to follow,

Jeremy Howard @jph.bsky.social

Gaël Varoquaux @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social

antirez @antirez.bsky.social

Armin Ronacher @mitsuhiko.at

Brewster Kahle @brewster.kahle.org

Hacker News Top Stories @hackernewsbot.bsky.social

Simon Willison @simonwillison.net

Julia Evans @b0rk.jvns.ca

Miguel de Icaza @migueldeicaza.bsky.social

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social

karpathy @karpathy.bsky.social

François Chollet @fchollet.bsky.social

leshokunin 13 days ago

I was there when it was like 500 people. Took a break and came back. Mostly post about product and game development.

Sho.bsky.social

IAmGraydon 14 days ago

Any good ones for keeping up to date on the cutting edge of AI coding tools?

windex 14 days ago

Does Bluesky also have the bot problem? Cant stand X for this reason.

mooreds 12 days ago

Hmmm. It might be fun to create a HN leaders starter pack.

yewey 14 days ago

oh . perfect.

hey technical bluesky. i have a challenge for you.

tail the firehose on bluesky and calculate how many posts per second there are.

its 90-130 today. my observation is that its trending downward by 15-30 posts a second per day despite the upward alleged user growth.

and is that number going up or DOWN despite allegedly being 20x bigger than ever and a million new accounts a day?

#!/bin/bash

./websocat4.x86_64-unknown-linux-musl wss://jetstream.atproto.tools/subscribe\?wantedCollections=app.bsky.feed.post |pv --line-mode --rate > /dev/null

so what are these millions of new accounts if they dont post anything?

  • duxup 14 days ago

    I can’t answer or even evaluate your interpretation.

    But let’s assume that the people are there and there’s a lot less posting and more reading.

    Maybe that’s ok, or even better?

    Not saying it is, but maybe?

  • maxwell 14 days ago

    They're just dippin their toes in!

  • jaimex2 14 days ago

    Tantrums about X can only last so long.

    On the upside we all got the opportunity to just block any accounts announcing their departure from X.