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Bluesky's big selling point is that it's an open protocol, but it's their own homegrown protocol that nobody else is using. Meanwhile Threads has working Activi

Bluesky's big selling point is that it's an open protocol, but it's their own homegrown protocol that nobody else is using. Meanwhile Threads has working ActivityPub[1]. You can see threads posts on Mastodon. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-activitypub-test-mastodon https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-ac...

paulmd 3y ago
Bluesky considers lack of activitypub a feature. They don’t want push-content, they want local organic communities.
teamspirit 3y ago
I remember so many people who said, “yeah right, Threads will never connect to Mastodon,” and yet here we are. What a time to be alive?
- dylan604 3y ago
  oh boy. if we're marking "what a time to be alive" by having access to a social media platforms version of another social media platform accessible by a 3rd party wannabe social platform, then sheesh, give me the blue pill. i'd rather be part of the matrix.
madeofpalk 3y ago
In all fairness, while yes Bluesky so far has not yet lived up to their promise of decentralisation/federation, it’s still under development. It just hasn’t been built yet. Though, the whole blue sky stack is significantly more complicated than ActivityPub so I’m doubtful as many would actually set up “instances”.
- dylan604 3y ago
  > it’s still under development. It just hasn’t been built yet. Someone else was already first to market. Launching as an alternative that is half baked seems like really strange idea to me. Maybe they were trying to gain traction during the surge in Twitter hate, but if the thing you are asking them to jump ship to is a lesser product, only a tiny minority of them are going to stay. Half baked launches into a very well established market just seems like you'd be better off taking your investor's money and having grand ol' time in Vegas.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    I agree - they're taking their sweet time. But, they very pointedly and deliberately have not launched yet. They're still very pre-alpha - this is why there's invites (not to try and create some sort of exclusivity). Naively, I appreciate that they're not trying to rush something out just to compete, but rather are taking the time to build the right thing.
    - fn-mote 3y ago
      I hate to say it, but when you're a new business on the front page of HN... and people are calling you "pre-alpha"... you're missing the boat. There goes another chance to grab a load of new members. Is this all about tech?? Not enough funding to get things built? I am not sure I'm even going to have the patience to wait to be allowed to try this platform. Reviews seem very lukewarm.
- devinivy 3y ago
  On the upside, atproto "instances" (we often call them "personal data servers") have much less responsibility than the typical Mastodon instance. So folks should find them quite cheap and easy to run. One reason is that they don't need to directly support application features such as timeline construction, search, image optimization, etc: they just host your social data. We have 10 servers federating in production, each housing around 270,000 users, and it all runs on disk and sqlite, quite affordable! We migrated 2 million users off a single large host onto these 10 smaller ones transparently and without need for much fanfare. We're dedicated to the tech and seeing it work in production has been super heartening.
  - pfraze 3y ago
    the entire architecture is like if you started with the typical architecture for social network, but then got rid of the organizational perimeters. the atproto instances (PDSes) handle primary data storage, key management, and request routing. they're otherwise quite dumb, which as divy is saying makes them cheap to run and also general purpose for other kinds of applications. the app-specific business logic lives in the aggregator services that pull from those instances
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
notnullorvoid 3y ago
I'm fine with a new protocol, what I dislike is they marketed it as a main feature and still haven't shipped what was promised. So far Bluesky is just as centralized as Twitter. ActivityPub has some big flaws. We need something better, but I don't think I trust the Bluesky team to deliver that anymore.
- pests 3y ago
  They did recently just federate the core servers. It's no longer a centralized service but blue sky itself is now a proxy for a federation of smaller servers. Users get assigned one at random(?) upon signup and the blue sky api url continues to work and towards to the underlying server. One step at a time.
  - notnullorvoid 3y ago
    Is BlueSky the one running those servers? If so that's still centralized, but yes at least it's a step.
    - jakebsky 3y ago
      Yeah, that's right. The production network's data layer (Personal Data Servers) are architecturally federated now (i.e. there are multiple PDS hosts) but still operated by a single organization (Bluesky Social, PBC), so it's still centralized. The goal in early 2024 is to enable federation with other PDS hosts, so that users can choose where they keep their data (posts, likes, preferences, etc).
      - e12e 3y ago
        Can I run my own network today? Is there an open server implementation? Ed: Apparently you can play in the sandbox, but not set up a seperate network? Or federate with prod? https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds
AgentME 3y ago
Their homegrown protocol is meant to solve real problems with Mastodon, like that your home server owns your user name and can destroy or steal your account where you have all your followers. Account portability on Mastodon requires your current home server to be online and cooperate with you if you want to transfer your account to a different server. With Bluesky, you can do it as long as you have an archive of your data. The intention is to make choosing your home server into a minor implementation detail where the user is always in control instead of a hugely consequential upfront decision as it is with Mastodon.

paulmd 3y ago

Bluesky considers lack of activitypub a feature. They don’t want push-content, they want local organic communities.

teamspirit 3y ago

I remember so many people who said, “yeah right, Threads will never connect to Mastodon,” and yet here we are. What a time to be alive?

dylan604 3y ago
oh boy. if we're marking "what a time to be alive" by having access to a social media platforms version of another social media platform accessible by a 3rd party wannabe social platform, then sheesh, give me the blue pill. i'd rather be part of the matrix.

madeofpalk 3y ago

In all fairness, while yes Bluesky so far has not yet lived up to their promise of decentralisation/federation, it’s still under development. It just hasn’t been built yet. Though, the whole blue sky stack is significantly more complicated than ActivityPub so I’m doubtful as many would actually set up “instances”.

dylan604 3y ago
> it’s still under development. It just hasn’t been built yet. Someone else was already first to market. Launching as an alternative that is half baked seems like really strange idea to me. Maybe they were trying to gain traction during the surge in Twitter hate, but if the thing you are asking them to jump ship to is a lesser product, only a tiny minority of them are going to stay. Half baked launches into a very well established market just seems like you'd be better off taking your investor's money and having grand ol' time in Vegas.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  I agree - they're taking their sweet time. But, they very pointedly and deliberately have not launched yet. They're still very pre-alpha - this is why there's invites (not to try and create some sort of exclusivity). Naively, I appreciate that they're not trying to rush something out just to compete, but rather are taking the time to build the right thing.
  - fn-mote 3y ago
    I hate to say it, but when you're a new business on the front page of HN... and people are calling you "pre-alpha"... you're missing the boat. There goes another chance to grab a load of new members. Is this all about tech?? Not enough funding to get things built? I am not sure I'm even going to have the patience to wait to be allowed to try this platform. Reviews seem very lukewarm.
devinivy 3y ago
On the upside, atproto "instances" (we often call them "personal data servers") have much less responsibility than the typical Mastodon instance. So folks should find them quite cheap and easy to run. One reason is that they don't need to directly support application features such as timeline construction, search, image optimization, etc: they just host your social data. We have 10 servers federating in production, each housing around 270,000 users, and it all runs on disk and sqlite, quite affordable! We migrated 2 million users off a single large host onto these 10 smaller ones transparently and without need for much fanfare. We're dedicated to the tech and seeing it work in production has been super heartening.
- pfraze 3y ago
  the entire architecture is like if you started with the typical architecture for social network, but then got rid of the organizational perimeters. the atproto instances (PDSes) handle primary data storage, key management, and request routing. they're otherwise quite dumb, which as divy is saying makes them cheap to run and also general purpose for other kinds of applications. the app-specific business logic lives in the aggregator services that pull from those instances
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

notnullorvoid 3y ago

I'm fine with a new protocol, what I dislike is they marketed it as a main feature and still haven't shipped what was promised. So far Bluesky is just as centralized as Twitter. ActivityPub has some big flaws. We need something better, but I don't think I trust the Bluesky team to deliver that anymore.

pests 3y ago
They did recently just federate the core servers. It's no longer a centralized service but blue sky itself is now a proxy for a federation of smaller servers. Users get assigned one at random(?) upon signup and the blue sky api url continues to work and towards to the underlying server. One step at a time.
- notnullorvoid 3y ago
  Is BlueSky the one running those servers? If so that's still centralized, but yes at least it's a step.
  - jakebsky 3y ago
    Yeah, that's right. The production network's data layer (Personal Data Servers) are architecturally federated now (i.e. there are multiple PDS hosts) but still operated by a single organization (Bluesky Social, PBC), so it's still centralized. The goal in early 2024 is to enable federation with other PDS hosts, so that users can choose where they keep their data (posts, likes, preferences, etc).
    - e12e 3y ago
      Can I run my own network today? Is there an open server implementation? Ed: Apparently you can play in the sandbox, but not set up a seperate network? Or federate with prod? https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox https://atproto.com/blog/federation-developer-sandbox https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds https://github.com/bluesky-social/pds

AgentME 3y ago

Their homegrown protocol is meant to solve real problems with Mastodon, like that your home server owns your user name and can destroy or steal your account where you have all your followers. Account portability on Mastodon requires your current home server to be online and cooperate with you if you want to transfer your account to a different server. With Bluesky, you can do it as long as you have an archive of your data. The intention is to make choosing your home server into a minor implementation detail where the user is always in control instead of a hugely consequential upfront decision as it is with Mastodon.