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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[–] bobbytables@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

the .bsky.social is the main instance. The bridge acts as another instance.

For example one of my friends has a ATProtocol account hosted on the fellas.social instance, so his username is @johndoe.fellas.social

it basically works like lemmy and mastodon in that regard

The main difference with lemmy/fediverse is that instances don’t actually host the software, they just host the database. So it’s plug and play into any open source ATProtocol software. This dramatically decreases server loads and makes hosting an instance or your data cheaper but also means that software is more intensive to host.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Bluesky is not decentralized, stop calling it that.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 months ago

I guess my private server and open source appview conntected to the ATprotocol are a conspiracy theory then?

Yes the vast majority of people are on the main instance, but the protocol and software are decentralised. And bluesky the PBC is actually providing grants for people to set up alternative servers to speed up the decentralisation process.

Bluesky is far from perfect but I’ve been quite disappointed by the “Fedi Good bluesky bad” oversimplifying and villification that has been going on here recently.

[–] Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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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.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You can, it's just that individual accounts need to opt into the bridge.

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Mastodon reply from a briged Bluesky user replying to the official Bluesky account, also bridged

[–] Wistful@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

So all 3 people on the whole bluesky who even know they can do that or give any fuck about mastodon.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

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?

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I really dont think we should be bending over backwards to accommodate blueskys clearly inferior protocal when activpub is objectivly better

[–] cabbage@piefed.social 1 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

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.