What a few weeks you've had! I hope you're feeling better! I had just deactivated all my social media when people I know started actually using Bluesky, so that nudged me to start using the dormant account I started there ages ago 🤣 I like it! It has early Twitter vibes. But I'm such a fintech skeptic it's more of a let's see how long this stays nice. Starter packs and block lists are nice, but people are already starting to weaponize them to boost people who ought not be boosted and block in retaliatory ways. Humans are gonna human 🤷🏼♀️ That, and one of Blockchain Capital's people will now sit in Bluesky's board. I've seen how that plays out in crypto re: NFT platforms - they say they're going to stay pro-user, but eventually fintech wants a return on its investment and that will always come out of our hide. I like your idea of a User Board...but maybe Users sit on the board along with the builders (and the pro-crypto Blockchain Capital member)?
Cheers Jen! I'm up and running again, thanks for the nice note here — I would love to see a user board or something more radically democratic attempted there; time will tell; one of the main devs and a board member shared the post, so this is definitely on their radar.
The question of "what else might Bluesky become" is a trap, however.
It opens the door of no longer enjoying something for what it is. Instead, we are invited to ascribe the sort of fantasies that ultimately draw us into growth and scale.
Metcalfe's law gives way to the hypercapitalist Ponzi scheme of infinite expansion with no unwanted side-effects, no aftertaste. And “just this one time, maybe we can evade the Law of Ensh*ttification.”
I think it's worth trying! And there are models for how to attempt to do so; certainly very, very hard in a capitalist system with access to ad-optimizing, data-harvesting technology to plug into every digital pore....
I'm so burned out on the internet and social media. I love that Bluesky feels a bit more causal. Every post and meme doesn't have to be the most interesting or hysterical insane shit you've ever seen. Now I just need a Instagram substitute where I can post inane pics like its 2012.
TokTok was supposed to launch an IG competitor that was a throwback to the early IG days, called Croissant. Not sure what happened to that. Too bad— IG is a shit hole now.
Right. No different over on TikTok and Facebook. It shows you how conditioned people have become over the years. Bit by bit by bit, more aggressive spaming was installed, until the platforms now resemble the old Lillian Vernon catalogs of my childhood. A big kitschy mess. And yet people's narcissism and desire for some pittance of 'connecting' won't let them escape. A kind of tragedy.
I quit Facebook so long ago I can’t remember, and Twitter just before Musk took over. Facebook was a time-suck taking me away from practicing my music, and I couldn't see the point of Twitter. I tried Threads and Mastodon and it was the same in both cases: What's the point?
I'm on this and Medium.
You know Medium: the platform its own users love to hate. Well I don't hate it. I manage to make it pay for itself with my own content creation, and I've met a lot of nice people there. Also lost a few friends there because they left off writing gripping fiction to piss and moan about the platform, then complained about how they were losing followers, and I posted responses to the effect of, "Well what do you expect if you post crap like this?" I'm a "friend of Medium" so I have to realize at least $12.50/month to brake even. It was never about money for me. I know a few talented people who are making bank through the new "boost" program. I've read articles I knew were boosted that were strings of self-help clichés, so it's not such a badge of honor. That said I have 2 boosted stories this past year, and I agree they are good ones, but I don’t think they're my best. So maybe I'll look at Bluesky. At least there's no capital letter in the middle of their name.
Which is all great, but what about this place? The overarching interest of Substack is not art or community, it's business. How long before it's too enshittified to use?
Yeah who knows — the best thing Substack does imo is give you access to your full email list, so you can leave at any point. That's why you see some resistance to new 'follow' features and the social media-ification of the place; but as long as you can control your list, it's heads above a social media network like X or Facebook, where you're stuck on the platform.
As much as it's right to criticize everything else going on, please don't overlook the warning signs when it comes to Bluesky. I appreciated your prior reporting in the Times as some of the precious little I've been able to find in the press that expresses some skepticism, and that's what we need more of as Bluesky becomes increasingly popular and its problems stand to affect more people. More on some of those problems here: https://osteophage.neocities.org/writing/bluesky-offloadable-moderation
What a few weeks you've had! I hope you're feeling better! I had just deactivated all my social media when people I know started actually using Bluesky, so that nudged me to start using the dormant account I started there ages ago 🤣 I like it! It has early Twitter vibes. But I'm such a fintech skeptic it's more of a let's see how long this stays nice. Starter packs and block lists are nice, but people are already starting to weaponize them to boost people who ought not be boosted and block in retaliatory ways. Humans are gonna human 🤷🏼♀️ That, and one of Blockchain Capital's people will now sit in Bluesky's board. I've seen how that plays out in crypto re: NFT platforms - they say they're going to stay pro-user, but eventually fintech wants a return on its investment and that will always come out of our hide. I like your idea of a User Board...but maybe Users sit on the board along with the builders (and the pro-crypto Blockchain Capital member)?
Cheers Jen! I'm up and running again, thanks for the nice note here — I would love to see a user board or something more radically democratic attempted there; time will tell; one of the main devs and a board member shared the post, so this is definitely on their radar.
Nice! You do good work! 🙌
The question of "what else might Bluesky become" is a trap, however.
It opens the door of no longer enjoying something for what it is. Instead, we are invited to ascribe the sort of fantasies that ultimately draw us into growth and scale.
Metcalfe's law gives way to the hypercapitalist Ponzi scheme of infinite expansion with no unwanted side-effects, no aftertaste. And “just this one time, maybe we can evade the Law of Ensh*ttification.”
I think it's worth trying! And there are models for how to attempt to do so; certainly very, very hard in a capitalist system with access to ad-optimizing, data-harvesting technology to plug into every digital pore....
I'm so burned out on the internet and social media. I love that Bluesky feels a bit more causal. Every post and meme doesn't have to be the most interesting or hysterical insane shit you've ever seen. Now I just need a Instagram substitute where I can post inane pics like its 2012.
Hard same. Just posting whatever, with the lowest stakes, is really nice.
TokTok was supposed to launch an IG competitor that was a throwback to the early IG days, called Croissant. Not sure what happened to that. Too bad— IG is a shit hole now.
I can't use IG at all; never was a big user, but the feed feels so spammy now, I never even want to.
Right. No different over on TikTok and Facebook. It shows you how conditioned people have become over the years. Bit by bit by bit, more aggressive spaming was installed, until the platforms now resemble the old Lillian Vernon catalogs of my childhood. A big kitschy mess. And yet people's narcissism and desire for some pittance of 'connecting' won't let them escape. A kind of tragedy.
I quit Facebook so long ago I can’t remember, and Twitter just before Musk took over. Facebook was a time-suck taking me away from practicing my music, and I couldn't see the point of Twitter. I tried Threads and Mastodon and it was the same in both cases: What's the point?
I'm on this and Medium.
You know Medium: the platform its own users love to hate. Well I don't hate it. I manage to make it pay for itself with my own content creation, and I've met a lot of nice people there. Also lost a few friends there because they left off writing gripping fiction to piss and moan about the platform, then complained about how they were losing followers, and I posted responses to the effect of, "Well what do you expect if you post crap like this?" I'm a "friend of Medium" so I have to realize at least $12.50/month to brake even. It was never about money for me. I know a few talented people who are making bank through the new "boost" program. I've read articles I knew were boosted that were strings of self-help clichés, so it's not such a badge of honor. That said I have 2 boosted stories this past year, and I agree they are good ones, but I don’t think they're my best. So maybe I'll look at Bluesky. At least there's no capital letter in the middle of their name.
Which is all great, but what about this place? The overarching interest of Substack is not art or community, it's business. How long before it's too enshittified to use?
Yeah who knows — the best thing Substack does imo is give you access to your full email list, so you can leave at any point. That's why you see some resistance to new 'follow' features and the social media-ification of the place; but as long as you can control your list, it's heads above a social media network like X or Facebook, where you're stuck on the platform.
As much as it's right to criticize everything else going on, please don't overlook the warning signs when it comes to Bluesky. I appreciated your prior reporting in the Times as some of the precious little I've been able to find in the press that expresses some skepticism, and that's what we need more of as Bluesky becomes increasingly popular and its problems stand to affect more people. More on some of those problems here: https://osteophage.neocities.org/writing/bluesky-offloadable-moderation
Thanks for the thoughts and prompt. Joined up today!
See you there!
FWIW, Substack feels like a more hopeful place most of the time.
I think that counts for a lot, too
No thanks.