We're in an exciting moment for the open social web. As Elon makes one bad decision after another on X, we've seen waves of users leave the platform for alternatives. Three obvious beneficiaries of these, ahem, lapses of judgment are Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon.

What's particularly interesting about these three platforms is that while they have different perspectives on the open social web, they align in some fundamental ways. The most important way they align is they all live on top of open, accessible protocols.

This common thread is the key to a user-first open social web that lets people choose a platform based on what they value rather than the one with specific profiles they want to interact with. We must focus on bringing as many users to these platforms as possible while building tools that help them own their content and, most importantly, their relationships.

I'm not going to re-introduce these three platforms here because I think most readers are already well aware of them, but there are a few things I think worth mentioning because I'm sure it'll come up in responses:

• Threads is not yet fully federated via ActivityPub. Currently, this integration is behind a switch and is mostly one-way. This is obviously not ideal, but it's a start and I'm hoping we get at least one more update from the team before the end of this year.
• The AT protocol only has one major platform, and Bluesky itself owns it. That said, I believe in the potential of the AT ecosystem (lovingly called the ATmosphere).
• Mastodon is currently, by and large, the most prominent platform using ActivityPub and decentralized across thousands of instances. I don't like treating Mastodon as a monolith, but for this essay I will do so for simplicity's sake.

Finally, I want to make it clear that I'm active across all three of these platforms. I have my complaints about each of them, but I do think they all bring important new ideas to the table. I've found friends and communities on all three, and I've watched as folks went from one platform to another while stating why they felt their new home was serving them better.

At the end of the day, this is not about platforms because a social platform is simply a tool for connection. It's about people finding their people, not people trying to figure out where their people choose to be. That's like choosing a piece of furniture based on the kind of screwdriver you own.

This isn't about the tools. This is about how we make these tools work for us.

People, not platforms. People.

Press Eject

Only one thing is true about all social platforms: they eventually fail the user. The most common reason for this is a platform trying to serve too many users at once, likely due to a financial incentive, and ending up in a place where it's not serving anyone anymore. It's called "enshittification," and you've definitely experienced it more than once if you've been on any platform.

The most glaring recent example that proves this is Twitter/X. I don't think I have to dive into that story for anyone. But one significant part of the aftermath is folks who've tried to or succeeded in leaving for an alternative while feeling the pain of losing the connections they've made over the years. That extra friction slowed down or completely halted full migrations for most users. Even some of the most dedicated migrants still hold a presence there to make sure they maintain the relationships they've built.

What's appealing about these open protocol-based platforms is that they enable movement between different platforms in their ecosystem. Both have their (solvable) quirks, but the bottom line is that if you want to keep your social graph, you can do so. I've moved my Mastodon accounts across servers already, and it was quick and painless. When Threads federates, I can move it to Mastodon or merge it into my existing Mastodon account while keeping the connections I made there, as long as they have federated.

I wonder: if Mastodon or Bluesky had a "Migrate Here" button that users could click to leave Twitter while still maintaining their social graph, how many people would be willing to do so overnight? Would X even be a viable platform? Could we have killed Elon's project within days? Would Elon have to re-adjust his platform and, gasp, actually listen to his user base?

Let that sink in.

The Last Network Effect

During an interview with The Verge about sub.club, I explained what I believe can be The Last Network Effect. It's a goal where everyone is on the open social web via protocols, interacting with each other across platforms, and can also migrate platforms while taking their content and relationships with them.

"So we all need to be on one protocol?" You ask, presumably.

Well, it's complicated.

There's a lot I love and dislike about ActivityPub and AT. But one excruciating truth is that they're both very much in demo mode and still have yet to prove whether or not they'll serve average users enough to keep them around long-term.

As I said before, Mastodon is the biggest platform on the ActivityPub network today, and we've already learned about some UX issues that keep some users away from it. What will those start looking like as Threads, Flipboard, Ghost, etc., all light up and join the network?

AT has a similar problem, with Bluesky being the only major service on that protocol. Will it scale under one for-profit organization? Will others bother to host their own if it's too resource-intensive? Is there even a point in doing so if Bluesky holds too much of the network already and clients can augment it enough?

The greater point is that neither network has proven itself at a mass scale, and it's also far too early to decide if these are the endgames for everyone on the web. I think Mike Masnick does a great job explaining why this exploratory phase is necessary.

As such, locking ourselves down to a single protocol will likely result in a different problem: if the standard fails us, we'll be back at square one, either stuck in the protocol of our choice or starting from scratch on a different experience. I experienced Google+ and Twitter, and I don't think my heart is ready for yet another mass start-from-scratch migration.

The Users Have Spoken

One important thing to remember is that these Twitter migrations didn't happen because ActivityPub or AT proved themselves to be better than Twitter to the users, no matter how much better they may be. Mastodon pre-dated Elon's Twitter takeover, but it was barely a part of the conversation until it happened. Bluesky was rushed out the door to take advantage of the Elon situation and wasn't even meant to be its own vertical platform. Threads was also a reaction to Elon, and it's clearly nowhere near close to being a complete replacement for Twitter yet.

These migrations were not people's first choice; they were simply the next best thing available at the time, and some folks eventually learned why they might actually be better. Most of them have even tried multiple platforms before landing where they are. We, the folks who believe in open protocols, cannot act like this was an inevitability. This is a lighting-in-a-bottle scenario, and we need to seize the moment.

Yelling in our network bubbles will also not help. I see the same arguments about the other protocol on Mastodon and Bluesky, and I can promise you it's not moving any needles in either direction. Moreover, they are typically ignoring the issues of the platform they've chosen to justify their choices. It's unproductive and puts normal users off.

If we genuinely want standardization, it can't be about winning a platform or protocol war because those are driven by organizational incentives, not what the user wants.

And the users have spoken: they don't believe in one platform or protocol and likely never will. It's an unwinnable fight, and the quicker we accept it, the faster we can build for users and not let incumbents take back what's taken so long to get.

All of these platforms are open to integration in numerous ways, and we're lucky enough that users are actively choosing these spaces. It's time to stop forcing ideas on people when we can meet them where they already are.

Blurring the Lines

Some tools meet users where they are by helping blur these lines. There are cross-posting apps like Buffer and Croissant. SkyBridge enables Bluesky users to use any Mastodon app. OpenVibe, one of my favorites, is an app that brings your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds into one place and allows you to cross-post between the two and Threads. If the Threads API enabled feeds, this would be a viable social endgame for most.

These new tools don't force you to worry about where people are coming from; they just let you find and communicate with people without friction. I can have accounts on Mastodon and Bluesky and then forget who I follow on either platform. I never have to use either directly and can live just in an app like OpenVibe. That's what a good tool does: it hides the complexities and lets the user focus on their end goal.

I find these to be the most lightweight way of not worrying about which platform I'm on. They still maintain some separation, but typically, when using them, I completely forget where posts are coming from and focus on the interactions. This is probably the best way to remain platform-agnostic like I am.

But we can take it many steps further.

Building Bridges

To me, the most important cross-platform tool is BridgyFed, a service built by engineer Ryan Barrett. It allows you to bridge your ActivityPub account to AT and your AT account to ActivityPub. I've bridged my Mastodon and Bluesky accounts, and folks on the alternate protocol follow and interact with me as if it's on the platform of their choice.

Tools like this that natively bring platforms and protocols together will finally enable The Last Network Effect, and I don't think I'm the only one who believes that.

Flipboard, one of the first companies to commit to an ActivityPub migration, used BridgyFed to bridge accounts to Bluesky. Due to domains looking ugly, they decided to roll this back, but BridgyFed recently announced enabling custom domains for ActivityPub accounts bridging to AT, so hopefully, we'll see them come back to the ATmosphere soon.

Ghost, the newsletter platform this blog runs on, also recently announced that it will use BridgyFed as part of its ActivityPub integration to simultaneously bring everyone on the platform to AT. That means that when I post here, it'll automatically show up on both networks, and comments from both will appear on this blog. It's the POSSE dream writers, and other creators have dreamed about for years.

There's a vision of the future here where I can post something on Ghost, and right below the post, folks from Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and Flipboard are discussing it amongst themselves, not even realizing they're on separate platforms or protocols.

It's not just organizations, either. Leaders of both protocols are already bridging their accounts: Eugen Rochko, founder of Mastodon; Evan Prodromou, co-author of the ActivityPub spec; Jay Graber, CEO of Bluesky; and Mike Masnick, Bluesky board member. There are many other examples, but I think these prove the point.

BridgyFed is a centerpiece of a user-first open social web - not one platform or protocol, but infrastructure enabling innovation and user ownership. It's not about the platform you choose; it's about the people you choose. If it's built out even more, I can see it going further by helping folks migrate between protocols, bringing bridged connections over along the way.

A tool that bridges between platforms and protocols and even helps you own relationships across them. That's the "Migrate Now" button, and it's how users can finally hold their social platforms accountable in a way that's been impossible so far.

That, right there, is the dream of a truly open social web owned by people, not organizations, technology, or hype.

People, not Platforms

The endgame is not Mastodon, Bluesky, or Threads. The endgame is finding communities on the web and following them all on the best platform for you.

We don't have to enclose ourselves in walls of our own making or force users to understand the nuances of every platform and protocol. It's time to give people tools that empower them to make decisions that fit their needs. That is how we truly make the social web open.

Every platform has a mix of communities, and I can promise from experience that if you spend time on any for long enough, you will likely find your people. Platforms and protocols are transient mediators of your relationships. It has always been and always will be about the people.

Let's build bridges so you can find yours.

Thank you for reading! You can follow me on the open social web on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads. And if you want to be notified of future posts on augment, including my newsletter "Human-Generated Content," you can follow on RSS or subscribe here for free!