I'd previously publicly (though unfortunately without a clear traceable record to refer back to) been critical of Bluesky. And I think I was for all the wrong reasons.

I saw it—as many do—as "another Twitter", which is just not Twitter. Its history and interface make it impossible not to draw the connection. It has some fundamental philosophical advantages over Twitter, in its openness; its transparency and source model. Realistically, its licensing and community friendliness place it sufficiently across the "good enough" threshold, with respect to my personal ethics. So what's not to like? I think ultimately, to me it's just that it's not Mastodon. Where Bluesky takes a conservative approach in federation and decentralization, Mastodon makes it its most compelling selling point. Which in reality, adds substantial barriers to its usage, and limits its usage to primarily enthusiasts. While I believe Mastodon has the most stable and uncompromising goals and philosophy, Bluesky straddles the line—promoting openness and welcoming developer engagement, but still prioritizing an easy-to-use monolithic experience.

Furthermore, Mastodon leverages ActivityPub, which has shown to be a critical backbone of the federated internet. Bluesky has chosen not to accept this standard, and write its own protocol (which, as pointed out to me by a friend, confusingly shares a name with a certain modem standard). This can be read as distance from the FOSS ecosystem. But at the same time, I realize: since when is the FOSS crowd one to angry about choice?

While I have an account (several, in fact), I'm not active on Mastodon. I might not be active on Bluesky either. But I have found enough comfort in the Bluesky offering to accept it. I have several (non-tech, mind) communities I am involved with which have virtually no presence on Mastodon; if I am to keep ties and value engagement, I will allow myself to leverage Bluesky as a platform to use as a resource for social networking.