By “technically better” I mean it actually delivers on its technical promises of decentralisation, as opposed to bluesky that simply uses decentralisation as a buzzword without being actually open source and without allowing real competition for the main - centralised - instance.

I think mastodon has actual legs in that if bluesky fails to actually open up, it will enshittify and there will be another exodus. Mastodon has technical barriers to that kind problem, so it will still be there to pick up the pieces. The decentralised nature protects the network from enshittifying and means it will tend not to get exoduses like central platforms do. It’s a matter of making that growth count.

If in that time mastodon has worked on its discovery features, it might be finally ready to capture that growth.

If bluesky manages to properly decentralise then I imagine mastodon will not need to pick up the slack and will either join the network or fade into irrelevancy.

Hard to say which way it will go. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for bluesky changing its ways, and who knows when mastodon will improve in this way.

Yes, exactly this. Like something might be technically better but unless it’s doing its main job of actually connecting people it’s not going to work.

I wish more FOSS nerds understood this.

No worries lol.

I was more referring to the fact that they were very ready to say how they’d kill for it but the price was the thing stopping them. The maths is pretty easy but I think 3 people didn’t get the joke.

So you’re saying you value human life at less than $1,300.