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The beauty of open protocols is they don't preclude for-profit enterprise hosting large instances on their own server farm. This is already the case with email:

by hgs3 3y ago

The beauty of open protocols is they don't preclude for-profit enterprise hosting large instances on their own server farm. This is already the case with email: I can host my own email server or signup with a small (or large) or free (or commercial) email provider and still communicate with everyone, regardless of their provider.

p-e-w 3y ago
It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. They do it for email because due to its history, there is a very long tail of small mailservers that they need to federate with to be useful, but the big email providers are all working to phase out the "open" parts, with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. The Internet is not moving towards open communication protocols, it's moving away from them.
- hgs3 3y ago
  > with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Ideally, a user's feed would only consist of message boards they subscribe to. Similarly, message boards could limit posting to subscribed users, approved users, paying users, or those users with a "certificate" proving their human - the latter would be akin to certificate authorities we have today who assign certificates to websites. > It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. Not to derail, but that's the capitalist's contradiction: a capitalist points to competition as a theoretical advantage of capitalism, but then in practice does everything to eliminate it.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    > There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Of course. Locking down protocols is never required. It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. You're acting as if the status quo is an unfortunate situation that can be resolved by giving service providers the necessary technologies to interoperate. The exact opposite is the case. Service providers are actively undermining open protocols (EEE). They are very much aware that federation is possible, and they do not want it.
    - hgs3 3y ago
      > It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. I agree which is why it will take a 501(c)(3) non-profit to drive the change.
Buttons840 3y ago
What's going on though that a $5 / month server can't handle 1500 users posting a few bytes of text. I realize we're talking millions of bytes that have to be processed, but computers are fast. Are the protocols inefficient? Is the code just really inefficient? What's going on?
- marvin 3y ago
  I wonder how many are willing tonpay that $5 per month. The community as a whole is worth disproportionally less if it becomes 90% smaller.
  - Buttons840 3y ago
    I mean, why can't a single $5 instance handle 1500 users? 1500 users might generate a few megabytes of text, that's next to nothing.
    - shagie 3y ago
      It can't scale without spinning up new (heavy) instance. Its database is hosted in the same <<thing>> as the web server ( https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/install_docker.html https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/install_docker... ). Note that it's a single container that exposes port 80 and 443 - the database is hosted inside of that container. That makes scaling the main instance impractical without redesigning how its built, deployed, secured, and connects to its backend database. Note also that adding other sites increases this load without adding users as polling for content constantly is likely more expensive than having a user connect directly (and use it for a limited time).
      - Buttons840 3y ago
        Why does it need to scale? Does my laptop need to scale when I open a 100 megabyte file? No, it just does it in a few milliseconds then goes back idle. What I mean is, 1500 users sounds like a load you handle with a Raspberry Pi in a forgotten corner. I just don't understand what is happening to overload even the weakest of cloud instances?

by hgs3 3y ago

p-e-w 3y ago

It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. They do it for email because due to its history, there is a very long tail of small mailservers that they need to federate with to be useful, but the big email providers are all working to phase out the "open" parts, with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. The Internet is not moving towards open communication protocols, it's moving away from them.

hgs3 3y ago
> with anti-spam measures making it almost impossible to self-host, and privileged delivery mechanisms like push notifications that require closed APIs to use. There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Ideally, a user's feed would only consist of message boards they subscribe to. Similarly, message boards could limit posting to subscribed users, approved users, paying users, or those users with a "certificate" proving their human - the latter would be akin to certificate authorities we have today who assign certificates to websites. > It's generally not in the interest of commercial providers to use open protocols. Not to derail, but that's the capitalist's contradiction: a capitalist points to competition as a theoretical advantage of capitalism, but then in practice does everything to eliminate it.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > There are anti-spam measures that don't require locking down protocols. Of course. Locking down protocols is never required. It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. You're acting as if the status quo is an unfortunate situation that can be resolved by giving service providers the necessary technologies to interoperate. The exact opposite is the case. Service providers are actively undermining open protocols (EEE). They are very much aware that federation is possible, and they do not want it.
  - hgs3 3y ago
    > It's being done because it benefits the largest service providers by restricting their users' ability to move elsewhere. I agree which is why it will take a 501(c)(3) non-profit to drive the change.

Buttons840 3y ago

What's going on though that a $5 / month server can't handle 1500 users posting a few bytes of text. I realize we're talking millions of bytes that have to be processed, but computers are fast. Are the protocols inefficient? Is the code just really inefficient? What's going on?

marvin 3y ago
I wonder how many are willing tonpay that $5 per month. The community as a whole is worth disproportionally less if it becomes 90% smaller.
- Buttons840 3y ago
  I mean, why can't a single $5 instance handle 1500 users? 1500 users might generate a few megabytes of text, that's next to nothing.
  - shagie 3y ago
    It can't scale without spinning up new (heavy) instance. Its database is hosted in the same <<thing>> as the web server ( https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/install_docker.html https://join-lemmy.org/docs/en/administration/install_docker... ). Note that it's a single container that exposes port 80 and 443 - the database is hosted inside of that container. That makes scaling the main instance impractical without redesigning how its built, deployed, secured, and connects to its backend database. Note also that adding other sites increases this load without adding users as polling for content constantly is likely more expensive than having a user connect directly (and use it for a limited time).
    - Buttons840 3y ago
      Why does it need to scale? Does my laptop need to scale when I open a 100 megabyte file? No, it just does it in a few milliseconds then goes back idle. What I mean is, 1500 users sounds like a load you handle with a Raspberry Pi in a forgotten corner. I just don't understand what is happening to overload even the weakest of cloud instances?