For all that it did right, Mastodon made a massive unforced error not realizing that the key to social media propagation was keeping journalists happy. Instead, it alienated 90% of them with grievances and brow beatings about how they were pesky interlopers. BlueSky and Threads merely had to toss them a handful of candy, and promise them others, and it was like flipping a switch that sucked them out of here like runaway ShopVac. But I am convinced that many can be brought back.
@shoq are you sure Bluesky is doing any better in this regard. It seems like lots of journalist accounts have gone dormant there as well when the initial hype died down.
Meanwhile Threads has probably been the most successful despite them at times seemingly working actively against the news media. I think it might be just a case of journalists following the big numbers.
@mmasnick always brings coherence to our social media dramas. Maybe now more will better understand why some of us remain excited for the potential of “protocols over platforms.”
“Bluesky Is Building The Decentralized Social Media Jack Dorsey Wants, Even If He Doesn’t Realize It.”
@shoq "competition is good" is one of those things that often gets repeated in our capitalist society but isn't some kind of an absolute that holds no matter the circumstances. Competition is good in some contexts but cooperation is better in some others.
@shoq Funny, I can easily come up with a few arguments and probably more if I gave it a little thought:
standards only happen when people agree to work together to make them instead of creating 20 competing ones (like in that XKCD strip)
splitting up a userbase in something where the network effect deeply matters might just hand your centralized and closed off competition the win so you probably should consider long and hard whether the benefits from doing it are worth it
limited resources are better spent working on something together rather than reinventing it many times
You don't have to agree but I find it very surprising that you're saying you can't even see it.