Summary
Journalists are increasingly abandoning X (formerly Twitter) for Bluesky, citing higher engagement and less toxicity. Since Elon Musk’s takeover of X, changes like deprioritizing external links and rising hate speech have alienated many, especially marginalized groups.
Bluesky, founded by Jack Dorsey, offers a more welcoming environment, especially for journalists and activists, with 20x the engagement in some cases.
Reporters note better traffic, reduced harassment, and a focus on diverse stories.
Organizations like The Guardian and fundraising groups also report greater success on Bluesky compared to X.
This analogy gets used a lot here, but it ignores the fact you literally see users struggling, asking for help, then giving up.
Also, email had a lot of things helping it out. Many ISPs would (and still) give people an email address and set it up for them. Moreover, mail web clients like Hotmail and Gmail didn’t pester people with domain selection. Average users didn’t pick a Hotmail or Gmail domain because they were thinking about the domain, they got it because they were thinking about the features that the web client and host offered.
Hotmail and Gmail are domains. People had already chosen a domain before they went to the website.
My point is email isn’t just a domain. It’s a client and a hosting service. You were forced to use their domains if you wanted access to their web clients, free storage, etc.
No one chose Gmail early on because they wanted the “Gmail” domain. They chose it because of the web client and massive free storage.
So you’re arguing that Mastodon instances don’t do enough to set themselves apart on features?