A popular feature of BlueSky that really gets new users’ feeds going is their Starter Packs.
Mastodon Migration Blog is replicating this good idea for the Fediverse with follow packs. These are csv files that can be downloaded and imported into Mastodon to follow a bunch of users around a topic.
Misskey and its forks have had user recommendations for forever now. Suddenly this is an issue for Mastodon, but it wouldn’t have been an issue for the fediverse if Mastodon didn’t have a functional monopoly over the conversation.
Bluesky’s success is really showing Mastodon’s shortcomings
It’s really showing the huge issues with fediverse monoculture, too, that is driven in no small part by Mastodon. Mastodon is designed with very limited theming, very limited ability to self-brand, etc. It’s designed so that every Mastodon website looks just like every other. This gives most people the impression that Mastodon is a place on the Internet, in the same way that, say, Facebook is, rather than a website platform like WordPress.
The magic of being able to see what people post on other websites from the one you’re using gets totally overwritten by the expectation that everything is actually the same place. And once you have that expectation, Mastodon kind of feels broken. “What do you mean I can’t see all of the comments? Why not?”, “What do you mean you’re denying me access to those people over there?”, etc.
And don’t even get me started on the people lobbying for limited functionality because they want to own the commons and dictate how people use the public and open communication protocol.
It’s all so frustrating, and sad.
I mean, yeah. Especially when the content of your flawlessly customised site is federated to thousands other activity pub enabled sites with different stylesheets and aesthetics. That isn’t a problem with Mastodon per se, it’s just the nature of federation.
I do agree with your broader point that Mastodon has become synonymous with fediverse microblogging, which again is what most people associate with the fediverse, period.
The issue isn’t where the content lands, it’s the erasure of the local. The idea of branding is to help create a local community on the server that has access to the rest of the social web, rather than an impersonal general node on the network.
What we really want is people who are into, I don’t know, really into Mazdas coming together to talk to each other on MazdaFans.social, with bespoke theming and branding, while also having access to anything else that they want from startrek.social, weirdbugs.social, etc. What we have is everyone on generic omninodes looking for hashtag mazda, totally unsure if they’ll find anything.
I use misskey too, but I wouldn’t call user recommendations the same as BlueSky Starter Packs or this. It’s more of a starting point for specific topics rather than just generally popular users or algorithmically determined recommendations. Instead it’s a set of lists of curated users for people to get their feed started, who will then follow more people that those users boost.
Unrelated: Maybe it’s just my Japanese misskey instance and followings, but most people there just say they woke up, had a nice meal, came back from work, or just the random thought on their mind, and a lot of supporting reactions under each.
Not the same, no, but it offers enough to get people started, and keep them happy.
Which Mastodon just kind of refuses to do.