The idea that this might in any way appeal to 'newcomers' is bananas to me
It’s hard not to agree with John Gruber’s analysis of Openvibe, an app that allows you to mash together all of the different decentralised social networks (Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, etc.) into one timeline. He doesn’t like it, and I have never liked the idea.
That’s partly because it’s confusing, but even if you managed to provide a compelling UX, the rhetorics of interactive communication are completely different on social networks. The way people interact on one social network use different norms and approaches than others. That means different literacies are involved. I’d argue that mashing it all together only really serves people who wish to ‘broadcast’ messages to multiple places at the same time.
I really don’t see the point of mashing the tweets from two (or more!) different social networks into one unified timeline. To me it’s just confusing. I don’t love the current situation where three entirely separate, thriving social networks are worth some portion of my attention (not to mention that a fourth, X, still kinda does too). But when I use each of these platforms, I want to use a client that is dedicated to each platform. These platforms all have different features, to varying degrees, and they definitely have different vibes and cultural norms. Pretending that they all form one big (lowercase-m) meta platform doesn’t make that pretense cohesive. Mashing them all together in one timeline isn’t simpler. It sounds simpler but in practice it’s more cacophonous.
The idea that this might in any way appeal to “newcomers” is bananas to me. The concept of streaming multiple accounts from multiple networks into one timeline is by definition a bit advanced. In my experience, for very obvious reasons, casual social network users only use the first-party client. They’re confused even by the idea of using, say, an app named Ivory to access a social network called Mastodon. The idea of explaining to them why they might want to use an app named Openvibe to access Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads (and the weirdo blockchain network Nostr) is like trying to explain to your dog why they should stay out of the trash. There’s a market for third-party clients (or at least I hope there is), but that market is not made up of “newcomers”.
Source: Daring Fireball