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> People are having a great time! But I suspect this is because the service is currently small, simple, and centralized. Once the decentralized systems are in place, there’s a good chance it’ll be more confusing.

Precisely! This is what has been ticking me off about the Bluesky love-in so far; it's as if people are so desperate to call something "new Twitter" that they forgot the systemic factors around why Twitter turned bad.

Today, BSK is exclusive. Getting an invite gives one the ability to peer into what's happening at the cool table. It's invite-only, so most people there will be cool and not try to clickbait or build clout.

Problem is, Facebook was exclusive once too. It didn't last. Twitter also was once just a quirky little online space. Then the Arab Spring happened and now everybody writes with an assumed gravitas, as if their 280 chars are going to be featured in a CNN story.




> the systemic factors around why Twitter turned bad.

Being controllable by one guy who does dumb stuff on a whim?

That's a tough, tough nut to crack, I think.

On one hand you can just make something totally open, and then it turns into a "hive of scum and villainy" and normal people don't want anything to do with it (something like: https://www.upworthy.com/bartender-explains-why-he-swiftly-k... )

Or you can have strong moderation and ownership. When that goes well, like HN, it's about as good as it gets in terms of being a mostly pleasant community to participate in. But that could all go away, if, say, YCombinator sold it to the Saudis or the Kardashians or whatever...

I can't for the life of me figure out why someone who was doing some genuinely cool stuff like rockets would want to get involved with something where even when it's working pretty well, people are going to complain about it and think it's unfair.


>Being controllable by one guy who does dumb stuff on a whim?

The entire twitterverse has been complaining loudly about how terrible twitter is for years before Musk considered buying it. The problems are inherent to the product-space, not the owner.

Musk simply came in and screwed with the brand. His ownership didn't really affect the toxicity of the platform as far as I can tell (although he has definitely contributed to it with his personal usage, e.g. dogecoin shilling). If anything, he actually took heat off the overall toxicity by shifting attention to his own actions.


> His ownership didn't really affect the toxicity of the platform as far as I can tell

This is not at all my experience. The new thing with the 'blue check' replies makes it much, much worse.

He let a bunch of right wing extremists back on, as well as various and sundry other bozos.

Now he's given Tucker Carlson, the guy Fox fired for being too racist, a platform again.


I signed up for it months ago and got an invite code. It’s therefore not invite only.


If you need an invite code to join then it is very much "invite only"

I also signed up months ago and yet am still waiting for an invite.


Eh, not if you invite yourself.


“I have a sandwich, therefore no one is starving”




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