4 ms·

One thing I still didn't quite grasp with BlueSky yet is if it's a decentralized platform or not... ATProto seems technically capable of supporting decentralize

One thing I still didn't quite grasp with BlueSky yet is if it's a decentralized platform or not... ATProto seems technically capable of supporting decentralized platforms.

wmf 2y ago
It's pretty decentralized. You can run your own PDS, relay, and appview (some of these are more expensive than others). I'm not sure if you can configure the official clients to use an alternate server.
- nunobrito 2y ago
  Decentralization on this social network context means to have users accessing data from other users even when other third-parties don't want you to. That platform is (today) a centralized walled garden. As others detailed, it is difficult for anyone to add new servers and even more difficult to convince the official client to support them. It is a complete contrast to NOSTR that has zero official servers and zero official clients to access the data. It has hundreds of relays from different people, along with several clients from different developers that compete for your preference.
  - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
    There are already alternative clients that support custom AppViews and relays
    - nunobrito 2y ago
      Described as "3rd party client" and which aims as goal to connect with NOSTR: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/feature-skyfeed https://docs.bsky.app/blog/feature-skyfeed Twitter also had 3rd party clients until one day they turned off the switch. Around NOSTR there are no labels as "3rd party clients" because they can't lock down your data with the push of a switch nor block your use of the platform.
      - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
        What's not to understand here? The PDS isn't a relay, it's a repository. The data layer is decoupled from the message passing layer, that's it.
        nunobrito 2y ago
        That's decoupling, not decentralization.
  - pfraze 2y ago
    What are you talking about? It’s not difficult to add servers or get the official client to use them.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
Bsky wants to be one entry point into a decentralized network but there's little incentive to spin up your own Personal Data Server (since you're still subject to the moderation of the one front end everyone uses (AppView in ATProto parlance)) and still less incentive to host your own front end since you'd just be burdening yourself with all the same moderation problems bsky is trying to stay on top of IMO the devs have been so overburdened with trying to nail moderation that they're actually disincentivized from onboarding new populations, since multiple entry points to the network just lands in their lap as more difficult moderation problems - that is, they're still figuring out how to moderate people on their own servers and haven't yet decided how they're going to moderate with a federation of servers with different cultures than their own I don't think they're avoiding the big problems, but it does seem like they're taking the slow careful route, maybe this is for the best.
shafyy 2y ago
In theory it is decentralized. But if you compare it to Mastodon for example, it's pretty centralized in practice. I haven't come across any people running their larger own servers, like I do on Mastodon.
- danabramov 2y ago
  Note the shape of decentralization is very different from Mastodon — there's no concept of "running a Bluesky instance". What you can run is a personal server to host your data (which would work for any atproto apps, not just Bluesky). The Bluesky web app (which is ran by Bluesky) would aggregate data from your server (and all other servers on the network). Unlike Mastodon, you don't have people running copies of the Bluesky app because it is simply unnecessary — each copy would "see" the same network. If you wanted to fork the Bluesky product (e.g. different branding, different moderation decisions, different product decisions) then yes, you'd run your own product on your own backend and it would be able to ingest Bluesky app data (and vice versa, the Bluesky app would be able to ingest the data from your product).
  - shafyy 2y ago
    Sure, but I still haven't seen people really doing that.
    - danabramov 2y ago
      Which part are you referring to by “that”? There’s definitely people self-hosting their data (not a lot cause the process is pretty technical and manual atm). Note that you can always move hosts (without asking permission from the previous host) so you can start using the Bluesky hosting and then switch it.
      - shafyy 2y ago
        I mean it does not seem like there's a bunch of personal data servers or web app instances people choose from, like there's in Mastodon (I know it's not the same technically). Therefore, it looks like Bluesky is much more centralized than Mastodon. I wonder if that's because it's technically harder to run your own software for Bluesky or what?
brianolson 2y ago
atproto PDSes are like blog servers with RSS (but better) and bsky.app is the prevailing RSS reader. It's an open protocol because anyone can host a source and anyone can run a different reader.
GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
BlueSky is just a reference implementation using AT Proto. They namespace anything bsky related in the lexicon as such.

One thing I still didn't quite grasp with BlueSky yet is if it's a decentralized platform or not... ATProto seems technically capable of supporting decentralized platforms.

wmf 2y ago

It's pretty decentralized. You can run your own PDS, relay, and appview (some of these are more expensive than others). I'm not sure if you can configure the official clients to use an alternate server.

nunobrito 2y ago
Decentralization on this social network context means to have users accessing data from other users even when other third-parties don't want you to. That platform is (today) a centralized walled garden. As others detailed, it is difficult for anyone to add new servers and even more difficult to convince the official client to support them. It is a complete contrast to NOSTR that has zero official servers and zero official clients to access the data. It has hundreds of relays from different people, along with several clients from different developers that compete for your preference.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
  There are already alternative clients that support custom AppViews and relays
  - nunobrito 2y ago
    Described as "3rd party client" and which aims as goal to connect with NOSTR: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/feature-skyfeed https://docs.bsky.app/blog/feature-skyfeed Twitter also had 3rd party clients until one day they turned off the switch. Around NOSTR there are no labels as "3rd party clients" because they can't lock down your data with the push of a switch nor block your use of the platform.
    - GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
      What's not to understand here? The PDS isn't a relay, it's a repository. The data layer is decoupled from the message passing layer, that's it.
      - nunobrito 2y ago
        That's decoupling, not decentralization.
- pfraze 2y ago
  What are you talking about? It’s not difficult to add servers or get the official client to use them.

jazzyjackson 2y ago

Bsky wants to be one entry point into a decentralized network but there's little incentive to spin up your own Personal Data Server (since you're still subject to the moderation of the one front end everyone uses (AppView in ATProto parlance)) and still less incentive to host your own front end since you'd just be burdening yourself with all the same moderation problems bsky is trying to stay on top of IMO the devs have been so overburdened with trying to nail moderation that they're actually disincentivized from onboarding new populations, since multiple entry points to the network just lands in their lap as more difficult moderation problems - that is, they're still figuring out how to moderate people on their own servers and haven't yet decided how they're going to moderate with a federation of servers with different cultures than their own I don't think they're avoiding the big problems, but it does seem like they're taking the slow careful route, maybe this is for the best.

shafyy 2y ago

In theory it is decentralized. But if you compare it to Mastodon for example, it's pretty centralized in practice. I haven't come across any people running their larger own servers, like I do on Mastodon.

danabramov 2y ago
Note the shape of decentralization is very different from Mastodon — there's no concept of "running a Bluesky instance". What you can run is a personal server to host your data (which would work for any atproto apps, not just Bluesky). The Bluesky web app (which is ran by Bluesky) would aggregate data from your server (and all other servers on the network). Unlike Mastodon, you don't have people running copies of the Bluesky app because it is simply unnecessary — each copy would "see" the same network. If you wanted to fork the Bluesky product (e.g. different branding, different moderation decisions, different product decisions) then yes, you'd run your own product on your own backend and it would be able to ingest Bluesky app data (and vice versa, the Bluesky app would be able to ingest the data from your product).
- shafyy 2y ago
  Sure, but I still haven't seen people really doing that.
  - danabramov 2y ago
    Which part are you referring to by “that”? There’s definitely people self-hosting their data (not a lot cause the process is pretty technical and manual atm). Note that you can always move hosts (without asking permission from the previous host) so you can start using the Bluesky hosting and then switch it.
    - shafyy 2y ago
      I mean it does not seem like there's a bunch of personal data servers or web app instances people choose from, like there's in Mastodon (I know it's not the same technically). Therefore, it looks like Bluesky is much more centralized than Mastodon. I wonder if that's because it's technically harder to run your own software for Bluesky or what?

brianolson 2y ago

atproto PDSes are like blog servers with RSS (but better) and bsky.app is the prevailing RSS reader. It's an open protocol because anyone can host a source and anyone can run a different reader.

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago

BlueSky is just a reference implementation using AT Proto. They namespace anything bsky related in the lexicon as such.