Bluesky and Enshittification
Cory Doctorow critiques social media "enshittification," emphasizing user exit options to maintain quality. He remains cautious about Bluesky's lack of federated features, advocating for systems like Mastodon to prevent lock-in.
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Cory Doctorow discusses the concept of "enshittification" in relation to social media platforms, particularly Bluesky. He expresses admiration for Bluesky's technical advancements in moderation and ranking but remains hesitant to join due to concerns about platform dependency. Doctorow reflects on past experiences with platforms that initially promised user-centric values but ultimately compromised their integrity under pressure from investors. He emphasizes that enshittification occurs when platforms can exploit user loyalty without fear of losing them, leading to a decline in service quality. To counter this, he advocates for systems that allow users to easily switch platforms, thereby imposing costs on service owners who might consider compromising user experience. Doctorow highlights the importance of federation, as seen in platforms like Mastodon, which enables users to migrate without significant barriers. He notes that while Bluesky has potential, it currently lacks the necessary federated features to ensure user freedom and trust. Doctorow's personal rule is to avoid platforms that do not allow easy exit, which he refers to as his "Ulysses Pact," a strategy to protect himself from future compromises.
- Doctorow critiques the risk of "enshittification" in social media platforms.
- He emphasizes the importance of user exit options to maintain service quality.
- Federation in platforms like Mastodon is highlighted as a solution to prevent user lock-in.
- Doctorow remains cautious about joining Bluesky due to its lack of federated features.
- His personal strategy, the "Ulysses Pact," helps him avoid platforms that could compromise user experience.
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3 commentsThere's something contradictory, in my opinion, to Cory's statements that he's made about the diminishing quality of platforms as they age: one, that a platform will close you in and make it difficult to leave; and two, that the platforms that usurp the existing contenders make it easy to onboard. Cory states that leaving Twitter to rebuild a community is a difficult process, but the rapid growth of Bluesky and the easily discovered testimonies of users there finding their follower count balloon overnight seem to debunk that standpoint. Bluesky in particular has methods available to it that help grow follow counts for both users and creators that improve upon both Mastodon and Twitter experiences, but one can only discover this if one avoids taking an immediately adversarial standpoint to the platform.
Things constantly change: people move, change phone numbers, switch email addresses, get new jobs. All of these things can break connections in more dramatic ways than changing from one social network to the next. I'm with Cory on the frustrating aspect of most tech businesses folding to investor pressure, but I'm not convinced that the way to solve this is by removing yourself from that process completely.
Cory seems to advocate trading a closed-source walled garden with millions of users for an open garden with fewer users. If the goal of finding a social network is its technology, then Mastodon might be a better choice; however, if one is seeking a community — that being, a social network with a lot of active users on it — then Mastodon is a dubious choice. Considering Cory complains that building a community from scratch by switching social networks is a difficult task, then I believe that he's going to find it noticeably harder to manage on a smaller platform.
Dude is on Twitter, Tumblr and Medium.
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