Sorry for the late reply, but I wanted to address your question – I think one misunderstanding is: in a sense there are no Bluesky accounts and there are no Frontpage accounts, there are only atproto accounts. Whether you make a post on Bluesky or Frontpage or Whitewind or Smokesignal, all of them get collected in the same repository. Here is a neat atproto browser which can display this, this is the account of Frontpage founder Tom Sherman and you can find all of his collections there: https://atproto-browser.vercel.app/at/tom-sherman.com

Bluesky still isn’t there yet on that side (and probably won’t, as it would prevent them from generating revenue if someone can just open a server and connect to their network)

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. As fas as I know there are no plans to inject ads, they are planning to create a marketplace for custom feeds (think “premium” feeds) and labelers and such where they would take a cut. You would obviously still be able to purchase access to them from other servers. But this goal seems kinda lofty, not sure if it can be viable.

To complete the network, relays are required on ATProto and apparently could be expensive to host, so right now, it appears the only relay is hosted by BlueSky the company. Which makes things slightly centralized.

A number I’ve seen quoted multiple times now is ~$150 per month to host a relay (Source). Which explains why Whitewind, Smokesignal and Frontpage don’t host one, they are mostly still small projects by individual talented devs, but imo if that number is true, it really doesn’t seem too outlandish that someone might go for it.

There is Bridgy Fed, which bridges accounts over to the other side if they follow the respective Bridgy Fed account on their platform. This is opt-ín though, so you can’t just follow anyone, they need to have followed @ap.brid.gy on Bluesky. To have your interactions bridged you need to follow @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy.

If the account you want to follow is not bridged and you are okay with just reading their posts, you can also use a service like RSS Parrot as every Bluesky account also serves as an RSS feed.

Zu den Autoren: Knut Bergmann und Matthias Diermeier arbeiten im Cluster »Demokratie, Gesellschaft, Marktwirtschaft« am Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW).

K.

Bei der Europawahl habe ich erneut vor aus Überzeugung MERA25 zu wählen, die Partei des ehemaligen griechischen Finanzministers Yanis Varoufakis. Wird aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach an der 2%-Hürde scheitern, aber gerade was “die Grünen nicht grün genug, die Linken nicht links genug” angeht, fühle ich vertritt MERA25 am besten meine Positionen.

Bin seit November auf Mastodon und seit Juli auf Bluesky und bin auch total erstaunt über den rasanten Zuwachs von deutschen Usern auf der letzteren Plattform. Muss sagen, für mich kommt das alles wie eine verpasste Chance für das Fediverse vor. Wenn man Anfang des Jahres besser aufgestellt wäre und das onboarding von Twitter-Usern besser geklappt hätte, hätte man sich den Bluesky-Spuk vielleicht sparen können.

Sich jetzt selbstgefällig auf die Schulter klopfen und sich sagen man sei auf der besseren Plattform und man müsse nur warten bis Bluesky auch implodiert, finde ich wenig hilfreich. Da werden stinknormale Bluesky-User als ahnungslose toxische clout sharks geschmäht, statt dass man sich nicht mal selbst an die Nase fasst und überlegt wie man Normalos das onboarding auf Mastodon hätte erleichtern können.

Aber manchmal kommt mir auch Rochkos Vision für Mastodon etwas zu rigide vor: wie lange man sich gegen Text-Suche gesträubt hat, ist da symptomatisch. Hoffe in Zukunft ist die Plattform attraktiver für alle Arten von User.

Sure, I just meant if Threads and maybe Tumblr are serious about joining the Fediverse, maybe the whole AT Protocol that Bluesky is trying to build will fall into obscurity.

Perhaps I should clarify: by “good posters”, I don’t mean Wendy’s epically dunking on McDonald’s and I don’t mean “night water hits different” lowest common denominator posters, just ordinary people like you and me shooting the shit. I think it’s sad Mastodon seems to have the reputation that people can’t crack a joke there.

That’s fine, I just want either of them to actually kill twitter for good though and it just doesn’t look like it’s gonna be Mastodon. With Threads potentially joining the Fediverse, I guess who knows.

I like Mastodon and the Fediverse, I really do, but I just can’t deny that all the good posters that made Twitter enjoyable moved to Bluesky. My Mastodon feed is nothing but journalists, activists, developers, but very little fun shitposting.