New to Bluesky

I will never forgive Elon Musk for ruining Twitter, which was an essential service for many people. Twitter is still there, as X, but it's a pale shadow of its former self and has become a cesspit of right-wing and misogynist content, some of it posted by Musk himself.

So what are the alternatives? 

There are now three major platforms vying for users.

• Threads is Facebook's offering. It has the largest user base but being a centralized platform under the control of Mark Zuckerg's Meta has put off many users, myself included.
• Mastondon is a federated and distributed system which means it can't be bought by a billionaire with an agenda. Mastodon is relatively small (about 10,000,000  users). 
• Bluesky is also potentially a federated platform though currently it has only one central node. It's probably the closest to the original Twitter in design and feel and recently has surpassed Mastodon in usage. 

I'm not going to discuss Threads as I am not on it nor do I plan to join up.

I have been on Mastodon for two years and it's become my replacement for Twitter. It doesn't have the reach or variety of users that Twitter had, but I'm finding the overall quality of what I'm seeing there much higher than what I saw on Twitter at it's peak. You can find me there at @ksoltys@twit.social. 

Bluesky has experienced a large surge in membership over the last month, most of it coming from Twitter users who can no longer stomach Musk's antics. I signed up recently and my handle is @ksoltys.bsky.social. 

So far, I haven't been very active as I'm gradually finding my way around. The interface is very close to Twitter's, but lacks many features that Twitter had or that Mastodon currently has. (One example: in my Mastodon client, when I sign in, I can go to the my last location in the feed rather than having to start at the top and work my way backwards). 

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on Bluesky right now. But I am going to list a few resources that I've found helpful in getting started there.

• How to use Bluesky Social: Everything to know about the popular X alternative. "Bluesky is one of several social networks striving to offer an alternative to the site formerly known as Twitter. Here's how to join and use it."
• An Unofficial Guide to Bluesky, by Debbie Ridpath Ohi. 
• Maybe Bluesky has "won". "November has sucked so far. One upside of the terrible nonsense is that more people are fleeing X. Many are choosing Bluesky. I’ve seen a bunch of takes about this recently, but I keep seeing things I disagree with. I figure that’s a good enough excuse to write more about this weird-assed social network."
• r/BlueskySocial on Reddit.