The Great Twitter Exodus of 2022 is still happening. It’s just a little…fractured. A lot of X power users migrated to Bluesky early on, which paved the way for a flood of folks to join that service in 2024. Meanwhile, a lot of technically inclined individuals are still hanging out on Mastodon (at least, that’s where I hang out).
Bluesky and Mastodon are both decentralized services, in theory, but users of one service can’t really talk to users on the other—or it wasn’t possible before Bridgy Fed, anyway. It’s a beta service that makes it possible for Bluesky and Fediverse-compatible applications, such as Mastodon, to interact.
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This is where Bridgy Fed comes in. With this service, individual users of either service can opt in to “bridging” their accounts. I tested this out with my friend and Lifehacker alumni Eric Ravenscraft, who hangs out on Bluesky more than me. It worked well—we can now see each other’s posts, like each other’s posts, and even talk to each other, cross-network.
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While this solution works well, there are a few hangups. Chiefly, it only functions if both people bridge their accounts. This means I can’t see any comments from Bluesky users unless they also are bridged, and vice versa: During our little test, a few other Mastodon users responded to my conversation with Eric, but Eric could not see those replies. This make sense if you know how the system works—only comments from bridged users are bridged—but it’s hardly ideal, and can lead to asymmetrical conversations. Unfortunately, the opt-in nature of the bridging service makes this inevitable.
If you are already using Bridgy Fed, how is it working out for you?
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Okay, there’s one thing I don’t get with Bluesky: user handles usually are @[name].bsky.social. But with the bridge they end with brid.gy. The account of Ben Stiller is @benstiller.redhour.com. Are those domains different instances? I thought that’s not possible (yet?). How does one get a different domain in the handle?
I’ve been seeing people migrate in mass lately. The biggest issue with the above is that it’s not at all intuitive. If Blue sky wants to be fediverse comparable, I think they need to make the process easier OR implement activity hub and link. As it is, all I see is people not opting in and a huge migration without activity hub users.
I’ve opted in on my fedi/mastodon account. But no one knows on the blue sky side to opt in so when I try to follow, no one shows up. It’s easier to just follow on RSS.
Oh well we can still have fun on our side of the Internet.
So you can’t interact at all, or see bluesky comments or anything. It’s basically as if you subscribed to an RSS feed. Pretty useless no?
Never really understood the appeal of twitter-like platforms anyway.
You can, it’s just that individual accounts need to opt into the bridge.
So all 3 people on the whole bluesky who even know they can do that or give any fuck about mastodon.
So y’all just pissing in cherrios today?
This is a brand new, opt in interoperability tool between 2 small-ish social networks. No shit its not heavily used yet. People who are using it can ask their friends to bridge, which will bring growth over time, just like any social networking experience.
What exactly are you complaining about? That someone else did something cool you don’t care about? That other people may enjoy something you don’t?
Well I don’t use either of those platforms, I was just curious. I just shared what I observed, I guess it does sound like a complaint.
Mostly disappointed that there even is a need for such a thing.
I really dont think we should be bending over backwards to accommodate blueskys clearly inferior protocal when activpub is objectivly better
I post on mastodon and bridge to bluesky. That way I can reach anyone there interested in following me, but I personally don’t have to bother with the site at all.
As someone trying to reach an audience, it’s pretty much perfect. Each to their own obviously.
Interoperability removes power from closed gardens. It makes the platform itself way less relevant.
“Bending over backwards” is how you undermine bluesky in favor of mastadon. We should 100% be doing it as much as possible.
I’ve never been on Twitter/X, Bluesky, or Mastodon. But maybe I’d like to try.
So far I can’t decide because I prefer Activity Pub in principle, but always felt FOMO with Twitter and don’t want the same thing to happen with Bluesky.
I think the best of both worlds would be if I could make an account on both and have one account essentially repost anything from the main account, unless I’m replying to someone specifically where it wouldn’t make sense to reply on both accounts.
Not sure if this bridge is a step in that direction, but it’s far more important to me that everyone can see what I post on both sides than it is that people from both sides can reach me on a singular account. Not sure if others feel the same way.
I think the best of both worlds would be if I could make an account on both and have one account essentially repost anything from the main account, unless I’m replying to someone specifically where it wouldn’t make sense to reply on both accounts.
That’s what I’d want from a bridge - something to connect an account at each end. If/when Bluesky suffers enshittification, it would mean that folks on Bluesky could just switch the direction of the bridge and start posting in the Fediverse. No sunk cost leaving you hanging on, no high barrier to moving.
Bluesky is not decentralized, stop calling it that.
please don’t
Thanks, very insightful!
Maybe elaborate?
do not bridge the fedi to bluesky, please.
You can just block it.
