5 ms·

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-tech

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"?
  - griomnib 2y ago
    To keep people out.
amatecha 2y ago
You didn't really set up a completely separate server that can exist without Bluesky's central servers (because that's not possible), so it's not a fair comparison. No, Mastodon was not designed to keep out anybody non-technical. In any given social circle, there is almost undoubtedly at least ONE person who can fire up a server and administrate it. You only need one sysadmin for your whole community - the rest can be moderators, and members can chip in some coin here and there to keep things running. That's about the simplest and most sustainable model I can possibly picture. If you don't know of someone in your social circles who runs a community, that's fine: start out on a public/larger one in the meantime to get things started, and you can move over later! If this is still too hard for someone, that's fine, there are countless centralized services they can remain on, like Facebook, iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, etc.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  > because that's not possible it isn't? I'm not aware of any relay servers being run but the AT protocol makes affordances for this functionality. Are those features a lie? I read the protocol specification only a few weeks ago, perhaps this is new? You're correct that the grandparent's PDS isn't the same as a Mastodon homeserver but that's probably a good thing; the network functions much differently than the ActivityPub federation
  - amatecha 2y ago
    To my knowledge you can't run your own self-contained Bluesky server/network that doesn't go through (or at least partially rely on) services owned/operated by the Bluesky corporation. > A world of full self-hosting is not possible with Bluesky. In fact, it is worse than the storage requirements, because the message delivery requirements become quadratic at the scale of full decentralization: to send a message to one user is to send a message to all. Rather than writing one letter, a copy of that letter must be made and delivered to every person on earth. https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ > The cost of running a full-network, fully archiving relay has increased over time. After recent growth, our out-of-box relay implementation (bigsky) requires on the order of 16 TBytes of fast NVMe disk, and that will grow proportional to content in the network. https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t > The fediverse currently hosts around 27,000 servers (many more users, but let's focus on servers). Adding just 5 more servers would be a blip in terms of the affect on the network. Adding 5 more servers to an ATProto ecosystem with that many fully participating nodes would be an exhausting number of additional messages sent on the network. ATProto does not scale wide: it's a liability to add more fully participating nodes onto the network. Meaningfully self-hosting ATProto is a risk to the ATProto network, there is active reason to disincentivize it for those already participating. https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/ https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/ [plus more] https://mathewingram.com/work/2024/11/28/is-bluesky-really-decentralized-its-complicated/ https://mathewingram.com/work/2024/11/28/is-bluesky-really-d... https://en.futuroprossimo.it/2024/11/anatomia-di-bluesky-e-davvero-decentralizzato/ https://en.futuroprossimo.it/2024/11/anatomia-di-bluesky-e-d...

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"?
- griomnib 2y ago
  To keep people out.

amatecha 2y ago

You didn't really set up a completely separate server that can exist without Bluesky's central servers (because that's not possible), so it's not a fair comparison. No, Mastodon was not designed to keep out anybody non-technical. In any given social circle, there is almost undoubtedly at least ONE person who can fire up a server and administrate it. You only need one sysadmin for your whole community - the rest can be moderators, and members can chip in some coin here and there to keep things running. That's about the simplest and most sustainable model I can possibly picture. If you don't know of someone in your social circles who runs a community, that's fine: start out on a public/larger one in the meantime to get things started, and you can move over later! If this is still too hard for someone, that's fine, there are countless centralized services they can remain on, like Facebook, iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, etc.

dingnuts 2y ago
> because that's not possible it isn't? I'm not aware of any relay servers being run but the AT protocol makes affordances for this functionality. Are those features a lie? I read the protocol specification only a few weeks ago, perhaps this is new? You're correct that the grandparent's PDS isn't the same as a Mastodon homeserver but that's probably a good thing; the network functions much differently than the ActivityPub federation
- amatecha 2y ago
  To my knowledge you can't run your own self-contained Bluesky server/network that doesn't go through (or at least partially rely on) services owned/operated by the Bluesky corporation. > A world of full self-hosting is not possible with Bluesky. In fact, it is worse than the storage requirements, because the message delivery requirements become quadratic at the scale of full decentralization: to send a message to one user is to send a message to all. Rather than writing one letter, a copy of that letter must be made and delivered to every person on earth. https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ https://dustycloud.org/blog/how-decentralized-is-bluesky/ > The cost of running a full-network, fully archiving relay has increased over time. After recent growth, our out-of-box relay implementation (bigsky) requires on the order of 16 TBytes of fast NVMe disk, and that will grow proportional to content in the network. https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lbvbtqrg5t2t > The fediverse currently hosts around 27,000 servers (many more users, but let's focus on servers). Adding just 5 more servers would be a blip in terms of the affect on the network. Adding 5 more servers to an ATProto ecosystem with that many fully participating nodes would be an exhausting number of additional messages sent on the network. ATProto does not scale wide: it's a liability to add more fully participating nodes onto the network. Meaningfully self-hosting ATProto is a risk to the ATProto network, there is active reason to disincentivize it for those already participating. https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/ https://dustycloud.org/blog/re-re-bluesky-decentralization/ [plus more] https://mathewingram.com/work/2024/11/28/is-bluesky-really-decentralized-its-complicated/ https://mathewingram.com/work/2024/11/28/is-bluesky-really-d... https://en.futuroprossimo.it/2024/11/anatomia-di-bluesky-e-davvero-decentralizzato/ https://en.futuroprossimo.it/2024/11/anatomia-di-bluesky-e-d...