3 ms·

I think the when we talk about Twitter, the definition of "reliability" is entirely different. When we talk about emails, we can say it's reliable as long as my

by volaski 14y ago

I think the when we talk about Twitter, the definition of "reliability" is entirely different. When we talk about emails, we can say it's reliable as long as my email gets delivered one way or another. For example, if I send a mass email to 20 friends, I don't assume anything about when each of them will receive my message. I just think that it will get delivered in a reasonable amount of time. However what Twitter brings to the table is this: It is safe to assume when I tweet, all my followers will be able to see it immediately. This is a huge difference not because of the delivery time, but because of the type of behavior it enables. Being able to assume that my message is delivered in realtime is very different from not being able to assume. And this is not a technical issue, so even if you build a "good enough" realtime system using decentralized architecture, it wouldn't be half as good as Twitter.

thinkingisfun 14y ago
It is safe to assume when I tweet, all my followers will be able to see it immediately. Unless they do something else with their computer, or are doing some chores in room with the big blue skybox. And you can only assume this because you know Twitter has fast servers etc. - not because it's a proprietary black box. The same would hold true for your favourite, lightning-fast diaspora or OStatus pod of choice. Yes, ONLY those followers who ALSO care about super instant real-time speed, will be signed up to fast pods in turn -- but guess what, if you forced them to be on twitter they still wouldn't read, much less react, to your stuff in real-time. So you gain nothing. Is there a delay when updating to a status to identi.ca before it shows up on rstat.us for example? Have you even tested before you accuse people of "not getting it" --- ??
andreasvc 14y ago
It think the difference between 0.1s and 1s, as I imagine it would be, is quite irrelevant. The immediacy comes from the push, adding another hop for a federated server does not have to add a significant latency.

by volaski 14y ago

thinkingisfun 14y ago

It is safe to assume when I tweet, all my followers will be able to see it immediately. Unless they do something else with their computer, or are doing some chores in room with the big blue skybox. And you can only assume this because you know Twitter has fast servers etc. - not because it's a proprietary black box. The same would hold true for your favourite, lightning-fast diaspora or OStatus pod of choice. Yes, ONLY those followers who ALSO care about super instant real-time speed, will be signed up to fast pods in turn -- but guess what, if you forced them to be on twitter they still wouldn't read, much less react, to your stuff in real-time. So you gain nothing. Is there a delay when updating to a status to identi.ca before it shows up on rstat.us for example? Have you even tested before you accuse people of "not getting it" --- ??

andreasvc 14y ago

It think the difference between 0.1s and 1s, as I imagine it would be, is quite irrelevant. The immediacy comes from the push, adding another hop for a federated server does not have to add a significant latency.