Out of the loop

Rather than go over it again, here's my speculative answer to why BS has grown so much quicker than Mastadon - which isn't quite the question in the OP, but will cover much if the same ground (That whole thread is worth a read IMO.)

TL:DR - It's different because it isn't shit. Yet.

And it might not become shit. I think it's a shame that people are so instantly cynical about the possibility that things might turn out alright , especially if the people using it go into it having learned some lessons from Twitter, and with a determination not to repeat the mistakes. At the moment BlueSky is fun and friendly, and I'm going to enjoy it that way for as long as it remains the case. If it goes to crap, then I'll move on.

It isn't. It's another attempt to capture a lot of users for capitalism use.

Technically it supports federation, similar to Lemmy. But there's still only one instance. I don't know if it's due to the immaturity of software or something else. If someone want's to try the code is there.

I think the presence of ActivityPub (basis of Lemmy) already attracted most people willing to bother with hosting an instance so the potential adopters are not very incentivized to experiment with another thing.

Bluesky is still in the "trust me bro" stage. The others have matured into the "fuck you, pay me" stage.

It isn't. It's just the shiny new toy that twitter users who are desperate to leave the platform jumped to because everyone they know who already jumped ship moved there. They're marketing themselves as "better" than twitter and supposedly have better guardrails, but only time will tell when they start to enshittify.

Different? Jack Dorsey, the founder, and still largest single shareholder of BlueSky hasn't sold it to a Saudi Arabian beard. Yet.

It's different because it's the only one that's called "BlueSky"

I enjoyed Twitter for a long time when it was smaller and ad free and didn't suck, and now I'm enjoying Bluesky while it's smaller and ad free and doesn't suck.

It's unlikely Bluesky could ever suck as much as Twitter and Reddit have come to suck, but if I have to leave Bluesky in a few years for the next one, then so be it.

Some of this is more just a generic overview of differences in perspective.

• It was inspired by this piece by someone who is now on the board that manages it. Yes they have a CEO, but there is a bigger board collaborating on direction decisions
• They have an explicit policy opposing sharing data for AI usage.
• It was initially the place for a bunch of frequently targeted minorities and the leadership implemented a bunch of changes that — in combination with a attitude of “block don’t engage” because many people aren’t rational actors — significantly make the space safer for users and less susceptible to dog piling and harassment.
• Moderation is handled far better that any other large social media platform in my experience.
• It was created as open source and as an open protocol from the start so in the event of a takeover, it’s relatively easy to spin off a clone (see protocols link).
• They allow more openness to 3rd party moderation tools in a more integrated manner.
• They have been open about discussing funding planning in the future and red lines that are unacceptable to them.
• There is no algorithm in your main feed. You see only what those you follow share. There is a discover feed, but if you hide that it has no impact on your future experience.

They're getting ready to release a subscription service.

Bluesky was developed by twitter before musk took over. They spun it off and now we're here.