4 ms·

I don't think we necessarily need a single protocol to "win", but I will say the Bluesky/ATProto folks seem the most pragmatic when compared to the ActivityPub

I don't think we necessarily need a single protocol to "win", but I will say the Bluesky/ATProto folks seem the most pragmatic when compared to the ActivityPub and nostr communities.

kevinak 3y ago
I have a hard time seeing how Bluesky/ATProto is more pragmatic than Nostr. Can you elaborate?
- vegabook 3y ago
  I'm interested in this too. While I note the (slightly chaotic) plethora of NIPs[0], and many of them look blockchainy, NIP-01 looks ultra pragmatic, simple, and flexible for a bunch of possibilities, and is the only one that is required[1] to be implemented. [0] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips#list https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips#list [1] https://nostr.com/the-protocol/nips https://nostr.com/the-protocol/nips
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- apitman 3y ago
  Note that I specifically was comparing communities, not protocols. I actually think ActivityPub is pretty solid, though it's also the one I have the most experience with. Two of my main grievances with the communities both have to do with identity: ActivityPub as implemented in the wild doesn't make it easy to migrate your identity between instances. This has caused endless problems and drama with instances shutting down. You also have to use multiple accounts if you want to interact with different formats, ie Mastodon vs Lemmy vs PeerTube. As a user that seems pretty ridiculous. You're losing a huge portion of the advantages of federation. IMO a better model would be for you to create a single account on a universal ActivityPub server that supports all data types. Apps like Mastodon would act as clients, not servers. My reading of the specs makes me think this was the original intention (there is a client to server "C2S" protocol), but then Mastodon got big and no one ended up implementing the C2S protocol, treating Mastodon as the de facto C2S API. Note there is some work to create these universal servers[0], but I wouldn't hold my breath on Mastodon/Lemmy/etc implementing the C2S protocol. As for nostr, private key management is a complete non-starter for identity, barring some major new breakthrough. DNS is the pragmatic solution to identity. [0]: https://codeberg.org/Vocata/vocata https://codeberg.org/Vocata/vocata
jillesvangurp 3y ago
We need some of these things to evolve and interoperate. Nostr is nice but a bit stuck being a crypto block chain thingy for people who are really into that. It has no user base worth speaking off outside that crowd. Bluesky is mainly a thing that people talk about rather than join. And it has the Twitter founder backing it, which means it gets a lot of people at least a bit curious. Mastodon is a bit like email. Not great but it works right now and is reasonably easy to get into and integrate with. The feddiverse is bigger than Mastodon. But it's mainly Mastodon. And Threads soon apparently. Millions of people daily active on it. Not quite critical mass yet but closer than most other things have gotten since Twitter started imploding. Good enough? IMHO mastodon with signed content and per user key pairs would make a lot of sense and it should not be that hard to add it. Why is this not a thing? Just like using pgp makes a lot of sense for email. Except that never happened either. Already when I started using email in the mid nineties, some people were insisting on using pgp. That's thirty years ago and it was only some people. It remains very uncommon for people to use that. Key management is an obstacle. Techies get it. Everybody else doesn't.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  > Mastodon is a bit like email. Not great but it works right now and is reasonably easy to get into and integrate with. I mean, that's basically the story of the internet as a whole; a teetering tower of "eh, not great, but it'll do for now", since the 80s.
- asystole 3y ago
  Nostr is full of bitcoiners, who hate "crypto block chain" stuff more than the average person. There are active efforts to bring other groups to nostr- check out nos.social for example.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    I gather that bitcoin people are currently on a kind of PR campaign to differentiate themselves from 'crypto', but to be clear, to anyone outside that niche, bitcoin is crypto.

I don't think we necessarily need a single protocol to "win", but I will say the Bluesky/ATProto folks seem the most pragmatic when compared to the ActivityPub and nostr communities.

kevinak 3y ago

I have a hard time seeing how Bluesky/ATProto is more pragmatic than Nostr. Can you elaborate?

vegabook 3y ago
I'm interested in this too. While I note the (slightly chaotic) plethora of NIPs[0], and many of them look blockchainy, NIP-01 looks ultra pragmatic, simple, and flexible for a bunch of possibilities, and is the only one that is required[1] to be implemented. [0] https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips#list https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nips#list [1] https://nostr.com/the-protocol/nips https://nostr.com/the-protocol/nips
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
apitman 3y ago
Note that I specifically was comparing communities, not protocols. I actually think ActivityPub is pretty solid, though it's also the one I have the most experience with. Two of my main grievances with the communities both have to do with identity: ActivityPub as implemented in the wild doesn't make it easy to migrate your identity between instances. This has caused endless problems and drama with instances shutting down. You also have to use multiple accounts if you want to interact with different formats, ie Mastodon vs Lemmy vs PeerTube. As a user that seems pretty ridiculous. You're losing a huge portion of the advantages of federation. IMO a better model would be for you to create a single account on a universal ActivityPub server that supports all data types. Apps like Mastodon would act as clients, not servers. My reading of the specs makes me think this was the original intention (there is a client to server "C2S" protocol), but then Mastodon got big and no one ended up implementing the C2S protocol, treating Mastodon as the de facto C2S API. Note there is some work to create these universal servers[0], but I wouldn't hold my breath on Mastodon/Lemmy/etc implementing the C2S protocol. As for nostr, private key management is a complete non-starter for identity, barring some major new breakthrough. DNS is the pragmatic solution to identity. [0]: https://codeberg.org/Vocata/vocata https://codeberg.org/Vocata/vocata

jillesvangurp 3y ago

We need some of these things to evolve and interoperate. Nostr is nice but a bit stuck being a crypto block chain thingy for people who are really into that. It has no user base worth speaking off outside that crowd. Bluesky is mainly a thing that people talk about rather than join. And it has the Twitter founder backing it, which means it gets a lot of people at least a bit curious. Mastodon is a bit like email. Not great but it works right now and is reasonably easy to get into and integrate with. The feddiverse is bigger than Mastodon. But it's mainly Mastodon. And Threads soon apparently. Millions of people daily active on it. Not quite critical mass yet but closer than most other things have gotten since Twitter started imploding. Good enough? IMHO mastodon with signed content and per user key pairs would make a lot of sense and it should not be that hard to add it. Why is this not a thing? Just like using pgp makes a lot of sense for email. Except that never happened either. Already when I started using email in the mid nineties, some people were insisting on using pgp. That's thirty years ago and it was only some people. It remains very uncommon for people to use that. Key management is an obstacle. Techies get it. Everybody else doesn't.

rsynnott 3y ago
> Mastodon is a bit like email. Not great but it works right now and is reasonably easy to get into and integrate with. I mean, that's basically the story of the internet as a whole; a teetering tower of "eh, not great, but it'll do for now", since the 80s.
asystole 3y ago
Nostr is full of bitcoiners, who hate "crypto block chain" stuff more than the average person. There are active efforts to bring other groups to nostr- check out nos.social for example.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  I gather that bitcoin people are currently on a kind of PR campaign to differentiate themselves from 'crypto', but to be clear, to anyone outside that niche, bitcoin is crypto.