Brilliant analysis about the advantages and disadvantages of W Social, Eurosky and Mastodon by my colleague @nohillside

adfichter@infosec.exchange

Easyread for Non-Tech-Audience.

Conclusion:

"First things first: the fact that the European IT and startup industry is increasingly creating its own social media solutions, thanks to the growing importance of digital sovereignty, is fundamentally a good sign. It is also positive that the three most promising ones rely on federation and are not striving for isolated island solutions. Users therefore have at least a partial choice between different approaches to social media.

What does this mean now for European (and also Swiss) social media users? Primarily, they have the choice between a system primarily geared towards federation in the form of Mastodon & Co. and, from a user’s perspective, more Twitter-like systems based on ATproto.

Since many have already decided between Mastodon and Bluesky in the last two years (and further people leaving X will probably warm up to Bluesky more easily than to Mastodon), the choice remains between Eurosky and W Social:

Bluesky users face the question of whether they want to move their PDS (i.e. the server that holds their data) to Eurosky. Anyone who wants to set an example for digital sovereignty can do so relatively easily with the migration tool linked above. In terms of content, nothing changes for the time being; the existing Bluesky apps can continue to be used without any problems. Eurosky can show its added value where you want to use several of the apps in the Eurosky universe. mu.social (the web client for microblogging) including the new functions can so far also be used with a conventional Bluesky account.

Anyone who additionally wants to benefit from the exclusive offers of W Social (identified users and access to media content) must have themselves identified with a picture of their passport or ID (or, in Switzerland, wait until the E-ID is available and supported by W Social) and trust that this data will not be leaked. In order to use the exclusive offers of W Social (bot-free feed, news sources), the W Social app (or website) must subsequently be used (this content is not visible in the other Bluesky apps).

Regardless of whether you move with your Bluesky to Eurosky or W Social:

you are currently certainly among the digital pioneers. However, anyone who simply wants to exchange ideas with like-minded people on Bluesky can easily wait a little while before switching.

What you have to be aware of regardless of the choice of provider: all three ATproto options (Bluesky, Eurosky and W Social) are currently financed by investors. Whether the ideas for sustainable, self-supporting financing can be put into practice without ultimately falling into an enshittification spiral analogous to the large social media platforms will only become clear in the coming months (years?).

Anyone who wants to avoid this risk from the outset is better off with Mastodon.

https://dnip.ch/2026/06/19/social-media-now-its-europes-turn/