7 ms·

Mastodon isn't true decentralization to begin with, it's just federation like email, where every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all

Mastodon isn't true decentralization to begin with, it's just federation like email, where every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none. I find that approach a waste of time, as it's just replicating past mistakes verbatim. On top of that, the whole Fediverse is extremely political. Email providers don't care much what you write or with whom you communicate outside of spam, so it works quite well. Meanwhile Fediverse is blocking people and servers left and right, it's completely unusable unless you follow the group-think on whatever server you are on. Real decentralization is what Nostr is doing, where serves are just dumb relays, user-ids are public-key pairs and all the intelligence is in the client. BlueSky's AT-protocol should be capable of similar stuff, though in practice is still very much focused around the main BlueSky server.

simonw 2y ago
"every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none" So run your own server.
- shwouchk 2y ago
  How many people are running their own mail outside of large orgs or privacy/security niche? How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail?
  - staunton 2y ago
    It's easier to run your own Mastodon server than your own mail server (for the exact reason you cite).
    - shwouchk 2y ago
      I never ran my AP server but i did run my own mail in my late teens/early twenties. I don't recall it being particularly difficult, compared to eg setting a webserver. Just install some software from your distro PM and go through some configs. Nothing stopped some hacker from bundling configs with a point and click installer for android eg - A mail server doesnt need 100% uptime - or for servers. As for reaching others, ive never had problems because my domains had dkim and whatever else was available set up - could be easily automated like web certificates were, and i never send spam... How is that inherently more difficult? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to argue - just citing my own experience. What's to stop major servers ("gmail" and "hotmail" of AP) from blocking you? Obviously some aspects are different from mail as it is geared for wide distribution rather than directed communication, but it's not obvious to me that the decentralization problem is solved by a model that seems superficially close to email. Again, im not trying to troll you as im unfamiliar with AP - i genuinely don't know.
      - sangnoir 2y ago
        Setting up a mail server is now more complicated due to blocking of residential blocks, specific IP addresses needing good reputation, and the general stance taken by most MTAs is to assume senders are guilty until proven innocent. Setting up Mastodon now is easier than setting up email in the past - you don't even have to worry about DKIM or not spamming - most Fedi instances consider other instances innocent until proven guilty, a slow and human-powered process. Sender-reputation management and anti-spam automation is far advanced and far more stringent for email than it is for Mastodon/the fediverse. Setting up a Mastodon instance is a matter of installing a package and going through a browser wizard comparable to setting up a Wordpress instance, not difficult at all.
        shwouchk 2y ago
        I understand this, but you seem to have ignored my point in that it is trivially easy to make something similar for email and yet no one did, and that it is unclear what’s to stop the same situation from happening again when 90% of users have a lemmy.org or whatever address. Or like happened with the original decentralized web. there was once a thing called a “blog” that you could host on your own server from your home, but these days everyone is “blogging” through fb twitter and instagram (or your choice of a few platforms). Why is this time different?
        sangnoir 2y ago
        I failed to respond simply because I didn't realize you were making that point. To me, the existence of large players in a decentralized system is not something in need of addressing or fixing; IMO, decentralization is not the right tool to achieve egalitarianism - but it's a great way to avoid a monoculture. The fediverse, like email and most other human systems that benefit from economies of scale will have a Pareto distribution with very large free providers > ISP / work and community instances > individual instances. Banking is decentralized and interoperable, this doesn't prevent banking giants from existing the world over - I expect them to exist, I also am in favor of smaller regional and local banks and credit unions.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      Is that just an artifact of its relative unpopularity? Running your own email server used to be easy too, before the spammers wrecked it. If Mastodon became popular, it would presumably come with a large spam problem, with the same sorts of solutions.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail? The whole appeal of email-style decentralization is that even in those cases, Google can only block you from GMail - not email as a whole, which would be far more deleterious, and is the ever-present threat in non-decentralized platforms.
    - mattl 2y ago
      Number of people using Gmail is basically 100%
      - sangnoir 2y ago
        Your implausible estimate got me curious; so I checked[1,2] the first couple of result from Google on email marketshare. GMail is 27.7%. Apple has double the share, at 54%, you should be worried about Apple instead. 1. https://www.litmus.com/email-client-market-share https://www.litmus.com/email-client-market-share 2. https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-used-email-clients https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-used-email-clients
        mattl 2y ago
        That’s clients. People add their Gmail account to their iPhone and get Apple Mail. Virtually all email goes to Gmail between personal accounts and GSuite stuff.
        wrycoder 2y ago
        When I look at the email addresses in the various communities I belong to, it’s at least 80% gmail, and the rest are mostly defunct services are just barely hanging on. Yes, I run my own email server, have for years.
        sangnoir 2y ago
        > the rest are mostly defunct services are just barely hanging on. ...and what a miserable bunch most of them were: 2 MB attachment limits and 10 MB mailbox quotas?! GMail had to drag all of them kicking and screaming into the 21st century when they debuted with a 1 GB mailbox quota.
  - tbrownaw 2y ago
    > How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail? Had to set up SPF/DKIM/DMARC, then it started working again.
- griomnib 2y ago
  I found it a lot easier to set up my BlueSky instance than Mastodon. Mastodon to me feels like it was built with the explicit goal to keep out anybody non-technical, and for technical people, only the type that wants to corner you at a party and discuss the deep philosophical and moral choices of your Linux desktop environment.
  - 7v3x3n3sem9vv 2y ago
    if you're not running a relay, you're not truly decentralized. bluesky, in controlling the only working relay, continues to be a centralized platform.
  - _IIIIIIIIIII_ 2y ago
    What you're describing there is the "actual work" which can either be done by someone else and funded by investor capital (see the beginning of this thread) or you learn to do it yourself and in return you are not beholden to investors who will eventually try to extract a profit from you and your peers. Easy is seldom truly free.
    - phoronixrly 2y ago
      Just a reminder that this was how it always was before. Then people got lazy, people forgot how to RUN a community, and here we are. Moaning that federation is not decentralisation without even considering running their own instance, and when you suggest that, they turn around and say 'oh it's too hard'... Oh how I miss the times of interest-based forums with ACTUAL moderation, large IRC channels where assholes got kicked and none of this amorphous mass of people and bots producing unmoderated brainrot that then gets turned into AI slop-based timelines optimised for the sole purpose of stimulating people's dopamine receptors until they burn out...
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      Plenty of free software is easy to install. Why should it take "actual work"?
      - 2y ago
- biggestlou 2y ago
  That sounds like a recipe for a social media platform that never has enough people on it to be even remotely interesting.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Peacefulz 2y ago
    From my understanding of messing with Mastodon a bit, users can "subscribe" to other servers in the 'fediverse'. The proposed personal instance can act as a "Home" server and is a part of your handle in a way. It almost functions like a sub identifier. You can browse and interact all throughout the fediverse on a number of topics, while linking people back to the server you came from during engagement.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Do you run your own email server?
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  The promise of Opera Unite was that instead of sharing with someone on Facebook, or wherever, you could invite them to peer with you via your browser. You could share messages, share files, follow blog-type posts with everything p2p. That seemed to me like it should have been the next evolution of the net, and still seems that way. All right there in your browser (which was also a server, it United those two groups of functions) democratising the internet...
- preciousoo 2y ago
  We nerds are never going to beat the allegations, are we?
- dingnuts 2y ago
  harder in practice because many large instances block single user instances because abuse was an afterthought to the activitypub designers. Also, if you want to operate a home server, you also have to be willing to have a public file upload endpoint capable of receiving and storing arbitrary data on your server (because that's how ActivityPub works), and people send your server a lot of data, and a lot of that data will be extremely unsavory, and it will be your responsibility to make sure you remove anything illegal that someone on another server uploads to yours. I wasn't willing to take that risk, myself.
- iteratethis 2y ago
  This doesn't solve the problem. One "wrong" word and instance mods cut your ties.
phyzome 2y ago
Bluesky is centralized. Mastodon is decentralized. Neither is distributed.

simonw 2y ago

"every user is attached to a server and the server operator holds all the power, while the user holds none" So run your own server.

shwouchk 2y ago
How many people are running their own mail outside of large orgs or privacy/security niche? How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail?
- staunton 2y ago
  It's easier to run your own Mastodon server than your own mail server (for the exact reason you cite).
  - shwouchk 2y ago
    I never ran my AP server but i did run my own mail in my late teens/early twenties. I don't recall it being particularly difficult, compared to eg setting a webserver. Just install some software from your distro PM and go through some configs. Nothing stopped some hacker from bundling configs with a point and click installer for android eg - A mail server doesnt need 100% uptime - or for servers. As for reaching others, ive never had problems because my domains had dkim and whatever else was available set up - could be easily automated like web certificates were, and i never send spam... How is that inherently more difficult? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to argue - just citing my own experience. What's to stop major servers ("gmail" and "hotmail" of AP) from blocking you? Obviously some aspects are different from mail as it is geared for wide distribution rather than directed communication, but it's not obvious to me that the decentralization problem is solved by a model that seems superficially close to email. Again, im not trying to troll you as im unfamiliar with AP - i genuinely don't know.
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      Setting up a mail server is now more complicated due to blocking of residential blocks, specific IP addresses needing good reputation, and the general stance taken by most MTAs is to assume senders are guilty until proven innocent. Setting up Mastodon now is easier than setting up email in the past - you don't even have to worry about DKIM or not spamming - most Fedi instances consider other instances innocent until proven guilty, a slow and human-powered process. Sender-reputation management and anti-spam automation is far advanced and far more stringent for email than it is for Mastodon/the fediverse. Setting up a Mastodon instance is a matter of installing a package and going through a browser wizard comparable to setting up a Wordpress instance, not difficult at all.
      - shwouchk 2y ago
        I understand this, but you seem to have ignored my point in that it is trivially easy to make something similar for email and yet no one did, and that it is unclear what’s to stop the same situation from happening again when 90% of users have a lemmy.org or whatever address. Or like happened with the original decentralized web. there was once a thing called a “blog” that you could host on your own server from your home, but these days everyone is “blogging” through fb twitter and instagram (or your choice of a few platforms). Why is this time different?
        sangnoir 2y ago
        I failed to respond simply because I didn't realize you were making that point. To me, the existence of large players in a decentralized system is not something in need of addressing or fixing; IMO, decentralization is not the right tool to achieve egalitarianism - but it's a great way to avoid a monoculture. The fediverse, like email and most other human systems that benefit from economies of scale will have a Pareto distribution with very large free providers > ISP / work and community instances > individual instances. Banking is decentralized and interoperable, this doesn't prevent banking giants from existing the world over - I expect them to exist, I also am in favor of smaller regional and local banks and credit unions.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Is that just an artifact of its relative unpopularity? Running your own email server used to be easy too, before the spammers wrecked it. If Mastodon became popular, it would presumably come with a large spam problem, with the same sorts of solutions.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail? The whole appeal of email-style decentralization is that even in those cases, Google can only block you from GMail - not email as a whole, which would be far more deleterious, and is the ever-present threat in non-decentralized platforms.
  - mattl 2y ago
    Number of people using Gmail is basically 100%
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      Your implausible estimate got me curious; so I checked[1,2] the first couple of result from Google on email marketshare. GMail is 27.7%. Apple has double the share, at 54%, you should be worried about Apple instead. 1. https://www.litmus.com/email-client-market-share https://www.litmus.com/email-client-market-share 2. https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-used-email-clients https://www.oberlo.com/statistics/most-used-email-clients
      - mattl 2y ago
        That’s clients. People add their Gmail account to their iPhone and get Apple Mail. Virtually all email goes to Gmail between personal accounts and GSuite stuff.
      - wrycoder 2y ago
        When I look at the email addresses in the various communities I belong to, it’s at least 80% gmail, and the rest are mostly defunct services are just barely hanging on. Yes, I run my own email server, have for years.
        sangnoir 2y ago
        > the rest are mostly defunct services are just barely hanging on. ...and what a miserable bunch most of them were: 2 MB attachment limits and 10 MB mailbox quotas?! GMail had to drag all of them kicking and screaming into the 21st century when they debuted with a 1 GB mailbox quota.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > How many of those have had trouble sending mail to eg gmail? Had to set up SPF/DKIM/DMARC, then it started working again.
griomnib 2y ago
I found it a lot easier to set up my BlueSky instance than Mastodon. Mastodon to me feels like it was built with the explicit goal to keep out anybody non-technical, and for technical people, only the type that wants to corner you at a party and discuss the deep philosophical and moral choices of your Linux desktop environment.
- 7v3x3n3sem9vv 2y ago
  if you're not running a relay, you're not truly decentralized. bluesky, in controlling the only working relay, continues to be a centralized platform.
- _IIIIIIIIIII_ 2y ago
  What you're describing there is the "actual work" which can either be done by someone else and funded by investor capital (see the beginning of this thread) or you learn to do it yourself and in return you are not beholden to investors who will eventually try to extract a profit from you and your peers. Easy is seldom truly free.
  - phoronixrly 2y ago
    Just a reminder that this was how it always was before. Then people got lazy, people forgot how to RUN a community, and here we are. Moaning that federation is not decentralisation without even considering running their own instance, and when you suggest that, they turn around and say 'oh it's too hard'... Oh how I miss the times of interest-based forums with ACTUAL moderation, large IRC channels where assholes got kicked and none of this amorphous mass of people and bots producing unmoderated brainrot that then gets turned into AI slop-based timelines optimised for the sole purpose of stimulating people's dopamine receptors until they burn out...
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    Plenty of free software is easy to install. Why should it take "actual work"?
    - 2y ago
biggestlou 2y ago
That sounds like a recipe for a social media platform that never has enough people on it to be even remotely interesting.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Peacefulz 2y ago
  From my understanding of messing with Mastodon a bit, users can "subscribe" to other servers in the 'fediverse'. The proposed personal instance can act as a "Home" server and is a part of your handle in a way. It almost functions like a sub identifier. You can browse and interact all throughout the fediverse on a number of topics, while linking people back to the server you came from during engagement.
IshKebab 2y ago
Do you run your own email server?
pbhjpbhj 2y ago
The promise of Opera Unite was that instead of sharing with someone on Facebook, or wherever, you could invite them to peer with you via your browser. You could share messages, share files, follow blog-type posts with everything p2p. That seemed to me like it should have been the next evolution of the net, and still seems that way. All right there in your browser (which was also a server, it United those two groups of functions) democratising the internet...
preciousoo 2y ago
We nerds are never going to beat the allegations, are we?
dingnuts 2y ago
harder in practice because many large instances block single user instances because abuse was an afterthought to the activitypub designers. Also, if you want to operate a home server, you also have to be willing to have a public file upload endpoint capable of receiving and storing arbitrary data on your server (because that's how ActivityPub works), and people send your server a lot of data, and a lot of that data will be extremely unsavory, and it will be your responsibility to make sure you remove anything illegal that someone on another server uploads to yours. I wasn't willing to take that risk, myself.
iteratethis 2y ago
This doesn't solve the problem. One "wrong" word and instance mods cut your ties.

phyzome 2y ago

Bluesky is centralized. Mastodon is decentralized. Neither is distributed.