UX is always going to be the number one priority for a SoMe, when people have to pick one. People are not suckers for wanting proper solutions. FOSS projects need to prioritise this much higher that many of them do, otherwise they will never crawl out of the shadows and in to the light and forever stay with the nerds willing to accept an inferior UX.
Also, no one is expecting bluesky to avoid succumbing to enshittification. People will just jump ship to a new social media platform as they always have. Mastodon has been around for a long time at this point, but people jump to Mastodon, find it confusing, and leave for something easier to use
People will just jump ship to a new social media platform as they always have.
That isn’t how this works. Nobody’s jumped ship from Facebook despite all the myriad complaints people have had about it for over a decade now.
The only reason why people are moving to BS is because Musk helped a wannabe dictator get elected. In the USA. That’s pretty extreme, and if BS didn’t exist, they would still be on Twitter.
Consider the following: No.
It’s not our responsibility to make FOSS projects better, blaming consumers for wanting a feature prioritized is ridiculous and counter productive. Ease of use is something FOSS projects need to have to be viable to the general populace
You aren’t a consumer with FOSS. You’re part of a community. It’s an entirely different paradigm.
If you don’t like the service that you’re getting for free, there are a couple of options. One that’s already been suggested is to pitch in and help make it better yourself. Another is to start paying. Make donations. Offer to pay developers for the features that you want. Pool your money with other users who also want those features. Developer bounties are a thing.
Mastodon could have perfect UI and still lose to bluesky. Normal people don’t trust foss and mastodon has no advertising budget.