shazow on Warpcast

matthewb.eth pfp

bluesky is gaining mindshare because they found PMF with users who want to be surrounded by people who (mostly) agree with them. it’s political affiliation, not vision.

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GIGAMΞSH pfp

I’m very skeptical they’d be growing as fast as they are if the sales pitch was “bluesky is twitter but more politically left content moderation”

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matthewb.eth pfp

that’s why people are joining from twitter, which they now see as right wing coded due to Elon same thing with users defecting from meta “because of AI” which has become right wing coded how else do you explain that Bluesky’s user base is overwhelmingly left wing, a group that has never previously expressed much interest in decentralized anything, whether social apps or otherwise?

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shazow pfp

Both can be true. Reality is that people are fleeing Twitter. Most because all their friends had already left or because their feeds feel toxic or because they don't want to support Elon or whatever. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Bluesky is there and offers a fairly comparable experience to 2014-era Twitter, which is what most people crave. The app is snappy, the feel is familiar, the API is open, it has some newfangled bells and whistles they heard mentioned but maybe don't care about (less centralized, labellers, choose your own moderation/timeline algo, etc). Maybe the first few people left because of politics, but the last people to leave will do so because they just want to be where their friends are (regardless of their own political affiliation).

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matthewb.eth pfp

yes, agree with what you’re saying for the most part I just think it’s misleading and inaccurate to say that the current crop of users is migrating because of Bluesky’s superior “vision.” it’s largely viewed as anti-Elon/anti-Zuck and loosely left-coded, regardless of the product’s attempted positioning or messaging. that might change over time, but that’s the current situation.

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shazow pfp

I agree, I don't believe in a singular "vision" (pretty tired of the whole "north star" debate of ETH/SOL) -- there's always narratives, and some stick longer than others, but the meme changes all the time. IMO it's also misleading to overindex on left/right-coded. I've had so many friends in the early days write off crypto because it was too right-coded for them. I don't think they were right then (early days was just a bunch of curious nerds who were awestruck by the possibilities of this new technology), and I don't think they're right now (it's such a multi-faceted technology and community, there is collectivism and individualism intermixed throughout). Not to mention that the left/right axis is just reductionist to begin with. I don't doubt that there's a wave of people who got pitched "it's twitter but less right-wing" and were like "omg sign me up", and that's fine but I don't think that's a persistent view or relevant to how it's being used.

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matthewb.eth pfp

appreciate you laying out your thoughts and big agree on the ETH/SOL north start conversations lmao I disagree though, everyone I’m seeing joining in my FB/IG circles is doing so because they perceive bluesky as anti-Zuck/anti-Elon, they have no idea it’s built on a more open protocol (AT) or why it was built this way. the most common refrain I hear is “meta has added AI to its apps, so I’m going to move to bluesky!” which of course is a nonsensical protest but the latter is (right now) perceived as a foil to these other platforms. I agree that the left/right framing is reductionist, that’s partly my point. even bluesky’s true value prop is eroded by this framing, which is too bad imo.

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shazow pfp

We often wonder what it takes for an upstart to take down an incumbent, and one recurring path I've witnessed over and over: Just exist and survive long enough for the incumbent to make enough mistakes that the users start looking for other options. I think this has the most explanatory power, everything else is circumstantial. If it wasn't left/right, it would be something else. If it wasn't AI, it would be something else. It's very hard to always stay perfectly virtue-aligned with a massive demographic, so it's just a matter of time until there's enough contention that there's an exodus to absorb. (Credible neutrality tries to address this.)

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matthewb.eth pfp

yes, that’s a helpful framing as well personally I see this current move as an extension of the U.S. culture wars, but I think it’s also an example of exactly what you described: missteps by incumbents which ultimately cause users to seek out other options.

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