Why Were Bluesky and Mastodon Good for X?

David Heinemeier Hansson says one of the best things that happened for X was Blue Sky and Mastodon coming around. They worked as a honeypot for the most vicious people on X and Twitter, who gathered in an ever-shrinking echo chamber, ran purity cycle after purity cycle, and shrank until few of them were left.

The people still over there are out of sight and out of mind. X is not a perfect place, and firing squads still show up occasionally, but there is less of it. Watching Mastodon or Blue Sky from a distance feels like what Twitter used to be. On X now, 90% of his engagement is cool Linux stuff, cool technology, and showing a new computer and how fast it runs, with other people who are excited about computers. About 10% is chiming in on something a little controversial, then going back to computers.

The algorithm is very good at finding material people will engage with. Sometimes the material is enraging, but it is engaging, and it reveals a preference most people want: a For You page. They do not want only the following feed. They are addicted to the For You page.