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> ...has been strictly centralized and locked down (understandably, I'd hate to try to block abuse if I were running it). Not understandably at all, the reason

> ...has been strictly centralized and locked down (understandably, I'd hate to try to block abuse if I were running it). Not understandably at all, the reason for the lockdown is not for your benefit even if it is portrayed as such. Push notification can be run just like SMTP and is subject to the same type of abuse with the big difference that it actually easier to keep the spammers out since you know up front which senders are allowed to send notifications. It would be fully possible to self-host a push notification daemon which connects to those services which are meant to send you notifications, to which your devices connect for notifications. If you don't want to self-host it would be possible to choose a notification service just like you can choose an email provider. Things could be just as hands-off as they are now without being forced to open an Apple/Google/Microsoft account and hand over your communications to them. Don't be fooled by these 'for your protection' lockdowns, they are for the benefit of the one doing the lockdown, not for your own.

Groxx 5y ago
Those kinds of systems tend to have been created and popularized before any single large actor appeared and started using it. Push notifications were single-actor from the very beginning. Decentralized setups in that situation are much more expensive to build and run - with the exception of "from the goodness of their hearts" projects, a business has little reason to make the sole implementation vastly more complex and open to abuse. And tbh I'm not sure SMTP serves as all that positive of an example. It works, sure, but the reputation system and extreme complexity that has sprung up around it makes it difficult for newcomers to join - I can't just host one from my house, most email hosts will reject my emails. It works in spite of all this because it has too many large actors already using it for any new ones to stand any chance of rejecting (or improving) it.

Groxx 5y ago

Those kinds of systems tend to have been created and popularized before any single large actor appeared and started using it. Push notifications were single-actor from the very beginning. Decentralized setups in that situation are much more expensive to build and run - with the exception of "from the goodness of their hearts" projects, a business has little reason to make the sole implementation vastly more complex and open to abuse. And tbh I'm not sure SMTP serves as all that positive of an example. It works, sure, but the reputation system and extreme complexity that has sprung up around it makes it difficult for newcomers to join - I can't just host one from my house, most email hosts will reject my emails. It works in spite of all this because it has too many large actors already using it for any new ones to stand any chance of rejecting (or improving) it.