4 ms·

> so they aren't the only servers storing your data That's only true if other large servers eventually emerge. "Federated" systems have a tendency to coalesce

by p-e-w 3y ago

> so they aren't the only servers storing your data That's only true if other large servers eventually emerge. "Federated" systems have a tendency to coalesce into a network wherein a few big players – often just a single one – dominate the ecosystem. Gmail, Matrix.org, the few Mastodon and Lemmy servers that actually matter, etc. are examples of this. Usually, this leads to the dominant servers dictating rules for everyone else under threat of defederation (already the status quo with Mastodon today). And at the end, you have a hyper-complicated federated system that operates the same way as the centralized systems it originally aimed to replace.

steveklabnik 3y ago
I can't respond right this moment, but I suspect you may not understand the technical underpinnings of the protocol. It works very differently than Mastodon. I will elaborate later, unless anyone else chimes in :)
Zak 3y ago
That hasn't been my experience with Mastodon. The servers most of the big servers block are overwhelmingly sources of harassment, extreme hate content, and media that might be legally classed as child pornography where those servers are hosted. The servers I've noticed being really picky about who they federate with tend to be smaller.
steveklabnik 3y ago
So, I absolutely agree with regards to normal federated systems. Your examples are examples for a good reason. But Bluesky works a bit differently. Users don't work as like, "user@domain", you have the moral equivalent of a UUID. If the host of your PDS decides to defederate with someone else's host, that doesn't mean you're prevented from getting their posts, it just means that like, it's a bit harder to. And if you don't like what your PDS's host chooses with regards to defederation, you move to a different one, and when you do, you retain your entire following/follower graph, and people who follow you don't necessarily even notice.. The closest way to think about it is git, IMHO. GitHub hosts a copy of your project (a PDS of your posts), and you can have one locally too. You can also put up copies elsewhere, and people can grab copies of your project elsewhere. If GitHub decides to stop hosting your project, you can put it up on another host, no problem. If GitHub decides to stop hosting a project you want to follow, you can follow where they move. This is in sharp contrast to email or Mastodon, though in my understanding, Mastodon has made it a bit easier to move servers lately. Most criticism of BlueSky/AT tends to be that it's too hard to do things like private accounts, keeping your block/mutelist private, or even deleting posts. (Though the latter is better now thanks to the addition of the moral equivalent of git rebase.)

by p-e-w 3y ago

steveklabnik 3y ago

I can't respond right this moment, but I suspect you may not understand the technical underpinnings of the protocol. It works very differently than Mastodon. I will elaborate later, unless anyone else chimes in :)

Zak 3y ago

That hasn't been my experience with Mastodon. The servers most of the big servers block are overwhelmingly sources of harassment, extreme hate content, and media that might be legally classed as child pornography where those servers are hosted. The servers I've noticed being really picky about who they federate with tend to be smaller.

steveklabnik 3y ago

So, I absolutely agree with regards to normal federated systems. Your examples are examples for a good reason. But Bluesky works a bit differently. Users don't work as like, "user@domain", you have the moral equivalent of a UUID. If the host of your PDS decides to defederate with someone else's host, that doesn't mean you're prevented from getting their posts, it just means that like, it's a bit harder to. And if you don't like what your PDS's host chooses with regards to defederation, you move to a different one, and when you do, you retain your entire following/follower graph, and people who follow you don't necessarily even notice.. The closest way to think about it is git, IMHO. GitHub hosts a copy of your project (a PDS of your posts), and you can have one locally too. You can also put up copies elsewhere, and people can grab copies of your project elsewhere. If GitHub decides to stop hosting your project, you can put it up on another host, no problem. If GitHub decides to stop hosting a project you want to follow, you can follow where they move. This is in sharp contrast to email or Mastodon, though in my understanding, Mastodon has made it a bit easier to move servers lately. Most criticism of BlueSky/AT tends to be that it's too hard to do things like private accounts, keeping your block/mutelist private, or even deleting posts. (Though the latter is better now thanks to the addition of the moral equivalent of git rebase.)