this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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Can anyone explain Bluesky vs Mastodon as Twitter alternatives, asking as someone who never really used Twitter much anyway?
On the surface, both of them look very similar in format. They also both advertise themselves as decentralized and different from traditional social media, arguing that they won't face the same problems old social media did.
Mastodon uses ActivityPub, which is the widely used standard that most other fediverse platforms use. Mastodon is properly decentralized, where all the servers can interact and operate independently.
BlueSky made their own protocol that they control, citing that ActivityPub wasn't enough for what they wanted to do, and in some ways that's true. However with their structure, a central relay is needed in order for different instances to interact and so people argue that it isn't truly decentralized. Right now BlueSky is either the only instance, or basically the only instance. They've mentioned that they could transfer control of the relay to some other organization, but past that I don't think they've taken any steps towards that.
BlueSky is also a VC backed company while Mastodon is now under a nonprofit. BlueSky has its roots in crypto tech. There is more technical discussion on if it's even possible to have a decentralized BlueSky and if it's all just talk while they gather users.
My personal opinion is that I really hope bluesky does what they're promising, but I'm not expecting them to be any different than Twitter once they get a critical mass of users and the investors demand profits / infinite growth.