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If only Bluesky could be as decentralised as the Fediverse [0] Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. [0] https://arewedecentrali

If only Bluesky could be as decentralised as the Fediverse [0] Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. [0] https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/ https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/

wat10000 1y ago
The Twitter buyout should have made this obvious. When one company runs the whole thing, then some rich twat can wreck it on a whim, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
CamperBob2 1y ago
They aren't exactly equal evils... and if a federated replacement for Xitter were going to win, I think it already would have. Ease of use (and comprehensibility) are both pretty important in this business, and nobody seems to get that.
Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago
Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd. I'm confronted with a choice of servers, but if I love cheese and golf, do I open my account on the cheese server or the golf server? What will be the disadvantages of choosing one over the other? Instant blocker right in the sign up process that made me actually give up several times. If it was like that for me, imagine how it could be for an average user. The Fediverse will only be popular if someone releases a client that makes it as easy to use as X and Bluesky. Not sure if it's technically feasible (I don't know much about the innards of the protocol) but it doesn't seem to have happened at the moment.
- marssaxman 1y ago
  I did sign up for a mastodon account, but the server I used simply disappeared a couple of months later. I haven't worked up the motivation to bother doing it again.
- archagon 1y ago
  How is it a pain when you can just skip the server selection process and use mastodon.social like pretty much everyone else?
  - jsheard 1y ago
    Doesn't pretty much everyone using the same instance pretty much defeat the point?
    - archagon 1y ago
      We’re talking about the average user. They’re not going to be particularly passionate about federation. The point, to them, is to have a functioning Twitter-like social network.
      - Diti 1y ago
        The average user starts caring about censorship, AFAIK. And Bluesky has done very nasty ToS changes that only federation would have helped fight against. But this is off-topic, because the ToS changes are mostly about porn, while this HN submission is about the professional use of Bluesky.
        ethbr1 1y ago
        The only thing that would help with running sadly illegal in increasing parts of the world (including US) adult content servers would be not having a corporate entity. It's difficult to fund rapid development at the scale needed, with that hobble.
      - sumeno 1y ago
        Then why would the average user bother signing up for mastodon over something else
      - LexiMax 1y ago
        I'll be completely honest, as someone who remembers the internet before social networks, I have started caring less and less about being crammed into a single shared social space with every other person on earth.
- lollobomb 1y ago
  As for another data point, opening a Mastodon account for me was as trivial as choosing one random link from a webpage, choosing a username, password, and entering my email. If you get frozen on the choice of instance, that has more to do with your mental process than with an effective difficulty for the average user. If you really cannot go beyond your inclination, and since you are a a long-time Internet user and a nerd, why not host your own instance?
- beej71 1y ago
  > The Fediverse will only be popular if There's already way more stuff on Mastodon for the hashtags I follow than I can possibly consume. If this is "unpopular", I'm happy with the way things are. Maybe it _should_ be a little tougher to sign up for than the other mainstream options.
- gs17 1y ago
  > a long-time Internet user and a nerd This is the reason why it was a pain. You or I might think "this is a decentralized platform, I should look at all the servers and find the best one for me" and immediately get choice paralysis looking at who has what rules, who federates with who, who runs which one, etc. An average user will probably stick to the main instance and not even think about it.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  > Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd. I was in the same boat as you, and my experience was completely different. Mastodon's federation model reminded me of IRC, except nowhere near as balkanized. So how did I wrangle the supposed complexity? I started out on one of the main instances and just started people-watching. Over time, I took note of which server contained users whose content I enjoyed over time, then I just joined the server. Joining the server got me a slower federated feed that was both more pertinent to my interests that also functioned as a de-facto community space. I also found the moderation to be more to my own preferences. But the bigger server wasn't _bad_, I just preferred the smaller server because it was more personable. I don't use Mastodon much anymore, but that's more because a good chunk of my social circle left for BlueSky than any gripes I had with the platform. I don't know where they will go if BlueSky goes belly up, but I can tell you that it won't be back to Twitter.
SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago
> Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. Only if you expect to be there for ever even as they inevitably enshittify. Be under no illusion that although BlueSky is having its "first they are good to their users" phase now, it is temporary. So make the most of it now while it's good, but be prepared to move on when that changes. Embracing impermanence is a smarter play. This is nothing new, thus passes all social media.
rdiddly 1y ago
Bluesky is a public benefit corp which at least nominally means they don't have to maximize shareholder value at the expense of everything else. Decentralization is not a priority for most people. If anything, they actively want centralization, because it's easier. To get those people to decentralize, the solution will have to be dead easy and invisible. The AT Protocol being developed by the Bluesky people looks promising. I don't work for Bluesky, I'm not on Bluesky, and I don't particularly care, but I found your comment unfair after reading about ATProto on HN literally yesterday.
- slumberlust 1y ago
  How is this different than what OpenAI was structured as...until they weren't?
  - rdiddly 1y ago
    I have no idea and don't use OpenAI either. A quick search tells me OpenAI started out as a nonprofit and turned into the same thing Bluesky is, a PBC.
mbStavola 1y ago
I wonder why the Fediverse metrics don't count Threads, the single largest AP instance by several orders of magnitude?
- lollobomb 1y ago
  Because Threads is Meta's attempt at bullshitting Mastodon users in welcoming a wolf among the herd. Search for "Fedipact": Meta is de facto cut off from many Mastodon instances.
  - mbStavola 1y ago
    Except the largest Mastodon instance, mastodon.social, does federate with Threads. I'm not even sure if the list you provided even covers most of the top instances either. It really feels like an "eating your cake and having it too" kinda situation: you get the engagement and interaction with millions of Threads users but you don't have to count them in your decentralization metrics.
  - jghn 1y ago
    It's like when AOL was allowed onto USENET

wat10000 1y ago

The Twitter buyout should have made this obvious. When one company runs the whole thing, then some rich twat can wreck it on a whim, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

CamperBob2 1y ago

They aren't exactly equal evils... and if a federated replacement for Xitter were going to win, I think it already would have. Ease of use (and comprehensibility) are both pretty important in this business, and nobody seems to get that.

Al-Khwarizmi 1y ago

Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd. I'm confronted with a choice of servers, but if I love cheese and golf, do I open my account on the cheese server or the golf server? What will be the disadvantages of choosing one over the other? Instant blocker right in the sign up process that made me actually give up several times. If it was like that for me, imagine how it could be for an average user. The Fediverse will only be popular if someone releases a client that makes it as easy to use as X and Bluesky. Not sure if it's technically feasible (I don't know much about the innards of the protocol) but it doesn't seem to have happened at the moment.

marssaxman 1y ago
I did sign up for a mastodon account, but the server I used simply disappeared a couple of months later. I haven't worked up the motivation to bother doing it again.
archagon 1y ago
How is it a pain when you can just skip the server selection process and use mastodon.social like pretty much everyone else?
- jsheard 1y ago
  Doesn't pretty much everyone using the same instance pretty much defeat the point?
  - archagon 1y ago
    We’re talking about the average user. They’re not going to be particularly passionate about federation. The point, to them, is to have a functioning Twitter-like social network.
    - Diti 1y ago
      The average user starts caring about censorship, AFAIK. And Bluesky has done very nasty ToS changes that only federation would have helped fight against. But this is off-topic, because the ToS changes are mostly about porn, while this HN submission is about the professional use of Bluesky.
      - ethbr1 1y ago
        The only thing that would help with running sadly illegal in increasing parts of the world (including US) adult content servers would be not having a corporate entity. It's difficult to fund rapid development at the scale needed, with that hobble.
    - sumeno 1y ago
      Then why would the average user bother signing up for mastodon over something else
    - LexiMax 1y ago
      I'll be completely honest, as someone who remembers the internet before social networks, I have started caring less and less about being crammed into a single shared social space with every other person on earth.
lollobomb 1y ago
As for another data point, opening a Mastodon account for me was as trivial as choosing one random link from a webpage, choosing a username, password, and entering my email. If you get frozen on the choice of instance, that has more to do with your mental process than with an effective difficulty for the average user. If you really cannot go beyond your inclination, and since you are a a long-time Internet user and a nerd, why not host your own instance?
beej71 1y ago
> The Fediverse will only be popular if There's already way more stuff on Mastodon for the hashtags I follow than I can possibly consume. If this is "unpopular", I'm happy with the way things are. Maybe it _should_ be a little tougher to sign up for than the other mainstream options.
gs17 1y ago
> a long-time Internet user and a nerd This is the reason why it was a pain. You or I might think "this is a decentralized platform, I should look at all the servers and find the best one for me" and immediately get choice paralysis looking at who has what rules, who federates with who, who runs which one, etc. An average user will probably stick to the main instance and not even think about it.
LexiMax 1y ago
> Opening an account on Mastodon was a pain even for me, a long-time Internet user and a nerd. I was in the same boat as you, and my experience was completely different. Mastodon's federation model reminded me of IRC, except nowhere near as balkanized. So how did I wrangle the supposed complexity? I started out on one of the main instances and just started people-watching. Over time, I took note of which server contained users whose content I enjoyed over time, then I just joined the server. Joining the server got me a slower federated feed that was both more pertinent to my interests that also functioned as a de-facto community space. I also found the moderation to be more to my own preferences. But the bigger server wasn't _bad_, I just preferred the smaller server because it was more personable. I don't use Mastodon much anymore, but that's more because a good chunk of my social circle left for BlueSky than any gripes I had with the platform. I don't know where they will go if BlueSky goes belly up, but I can tell you that it won't be back to Twitter.

SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago

> Trading one corporate overlord for another is not the smartest play. Only if you expect to be there for ever even as they inevitably enshittify. Be under no illusion that although BlueSky is having its "first they are good to their users" phase now, it is temporary. So make the most of it now while it's good, but be prepared to move on when that changes. Embracing impermanence is a smarter play. This is nothing new, thus passes all social media.

rdiddly 1y ago

Bluesky is a public benefit corp which at least nominally means they don't have to maximize shareholder value at the expense of everything else. Decentralization is not a priority for most people. If anything, they actively want centralization, because it's easier. To get those people to decentralize, the solution will have to be dead easy and invisible. The AT Protocol being developed by the Bluesky people looks promising. I don't work for Bluesky, I'm not on Bluesky, and I don't particularly care, but I found your comment unfair after reading about ATProto on HN literally yesterday.

slumberlust 1y ago
How is this different than what OpenAI was structured as...until they weren't?
- rdiddly 1y ago
  I have no idea and don't use OpenAI either. A quick search tells me OpenAI started out as a nonprofit and turned into the same thing Bluesky is, a PBC.

mbStavola 1y ago

I wonder why the Fediverse metrics don't count Threads, the single largest AP instance by several orders of magnitude?

lollobomb 1y ago
Because Threads is Meta's attempt at bullshitting Mastodon users in welcoming a wolf among the herd. Search for "Fedipact": Meta is de facto cut off from many Mastodon instances.
- mbStavola 1y ago
  Except the largest Mastodon instance, mastodon.social, does federate with Threads. I'm not even sure if the list you provided even covers most of the top instances either. It really feels like an "eating your cake and having it too" kinda situation: you get the engagement and interaction with millions of Threads users but you don't have to count them in your decentralization metrics.
- jghn 1y ago
  It's like when AOL was allowed onto USENET