5 ms·

The "decentralization" of Bluesky is a joke. Despite its faults ActivityPub is superior.

afavour 7mo ago
If you wish to avoid downvotes you might benefit from stating why you think ActivityPub’s decentralization is superior. We’re in a thread discussing an example of Bluesky decentralization so it’s clearly possible.
- HotGarbage 7mo ago
  The amount of resources required to federate with Bluesky (i.e. ingest the entire firehose) is untenable.
  - AlienRobot 7mo ago
    It was not designed so anyone could run their own social media for $5. It simply has a fundamentally different design that tries to solve different problems. No need to call it a "joke." Both solutions can co-exist on vastness of the Internet.
  - mpalmer 7mo ago
    Bluesky's end user story is extremely solid. User-driven, first class moderation tooling, inside the protocol. Why do you think the difference in resources required between the two is decisive? Your opinion sounds too strongly held to be defended this half-heartedly.
  - jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
    Ingressing the firehose is by far the easiest part. Here's someone doing it on a $4/mo VPS. Lots of other examples, many on slightly more expensive systems. Phil here also runs a public link indexer service for all Bluesky on a raspberry pi 4 ("Constellation")!! https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ There's no other network where anything like this is remotely even possible today, much less at such tiny costs! And it turns out it's actually computationally not hard to do so much stuff! I ran into this really great thread from Henry Farrell on people who overly polarized themselves, who shut down being willing to hear anything else. https://bsky.app/profile/himself.bsky.social/post/3mgagtkjg7d2s https://bsky.app/profile/himself.bsky.social/post/3mgagtkjg7... Imo a good time to remember the old chant: "the only war that matters is the war against imagination; all other wars are subsumed by this war." A lot of totally closed people around HN parts. Atproto is one of the new favs for the shallow hate-brigade (alongside systemd, Linux audio, k8s).
    - deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  - wolvoleo 7mo ago
    It's more the parts they didn't make federated that hold it back in this regard. Maybe it's good for end users but that doesn't mean much if it can fall into the same enshittification trap as the others. Also, centralised moderation. I don't want to be dependent on an American company's moderation rules. There was an article here recently about someone who really tried setting up their own including a did:web and they ran into many problems. https://notes.nora.codes/atproto-again/ https://notes.nora.codes/atproto-again/ There's still many little centralised ties in bluesky and I doubt they'll ever relinquish control completely. Personally I like nostr a lot more, it seems to be more censorship-resistant and really decentralised.
  - vvpan 7mo ago
    Everybody is saying that but that but here is Bryan Newbold running one on $34/month: https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lo7a2a4qxg2l https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lo7a2a4qxg2l
pocksuppet 7mo ago
ActivityPub is a terrible protocol. The protocol isn't what the specs are, and there's not even a consensus de-facto spec beyond "what Mastodon does". Atproto is a bit better. Atproto is terrible at decentralization however, because of the model where data is stored decentrally, but accessed centrally, in big servers that need to be aware of all the data. In the ActivityPub model there isn't such a thing as "all the data" - you see what you see.
- jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  That's, like, your opinion, man. I am proud of my data, in its many media-type/lexicon feeds (browse my PDS directly at https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:zjbq26wybii5ojoypkso2mso https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:zjbq26wybii5ojoypkso2mso), and I want people to know. I put my data on my PDS because it's good data and I believe that people contributing their "data" (sharing the world as they see it) is a democratic / open society virtue that makes the world better. When you can meaningfully index all the data on a rpi4, I think that's awesome. That makes a lot of people scared or mad, it evokes many of the things people don't like. But it also stems from only ever having seen or known that situation when the entire stack is under corporate control and when it's a mega-corp harvesting the data. From being in captivity. Not when it's one dude bad-example.com running a link indexer for the entire site on an rpi4, and you can too. We don't know what's that like: it's never been possible. https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ There are legit reasons to have Fear Uncertainty and Doubt about atproto, and you don't have to have fun online. You are free to fuck off to less connected less online spaces if that's your bag. But I grew up wanting to be online and i still want to be online, and no service has ever actually done that before, not like this. This is dozens of times better than the next best thing as a distributed connected online system that I can be online with and that gives me the most freedom to build and use interesting neat new mini apps and tools, to be online with. To say that like it's a bad thing, is, to me, a joke. I acknowledge your values differ, and respect your decision, but it seems so weird to not want to have fun being online, to get better at it, to make more nodes on the noospheric graph, and to made more edges between them. That still feels like the right choice for me, and it's never been tried socially, and I think it has potential to let humanity keep improving in radical ways. In contrast, renouncing the connected feels like a bad dumb move. But enjoy!! GL;HF.
8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago
I lean the same way. I signed up with an alias and got instantly banned. Their support also drops certain alias emails, so there's no way to appeal. A "decentralized" network that locks you out for using basic email privacy tooling, with zero recourse, is centralized where it counts.
- minitech 7mo ago
  Not that that isn’t a practical concern, but that’s not the level at which the network claims to be decentralized. Your account was banned by one participant in the hypothetical decentralized network.
  - 8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago
    Agreed, in theory all participants are equal and being banned by one participant shouldn't lock you out of a decentralized network. In practice, the vast majority of handles (98.9% as of 2024) are under bsky.social [1]. Yes, alternative PDS providers exist, but if the default onboarding funnels everyone into one provider, and the average user doesn't even know what a PDS is, then decentralization is an implementation detail, not a user-facing reality. [1]: https://arxiv.org/html/2408.12449 https://arxiv.org/html/2408.12449
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 7mo ago
  That's just the bluesky PBLLC PDS that banned you or refused to register you. You can create an account with any email address you want if you host your own PDS or you can find another PDS that someone else hosts that is willing to register you an account. One participant's new account spam protection has nothing to do with the network at large being centralised
  - RobotToaster 7mo ago
    You're still reliant on the centralised bluesky BGS.
    - 7mo ago

If you wish to avoid downvotes you might benefit from stating why you think ActivityPub’s decentralization is superior. We’re in a thread discussing an example of Bluesky decentralization so it’s clearly possible.

HotGarbage 7mo ago
The amount of resources required to federate with Bluesky (i.e. ingest the entire firehose) is untenable.
- AlienRobot 7mo ago
  It was not designed so anyone could run their own social media for $5. It simply has a fundamentally different design that tries to solve different problems. No need to call it a "joke." Both solutions can co-exist on vastness of the Internet.
- mpalmer 7mo ago
  Bluesky's end user story is extremely solid. User-driven, first class moderation tooling, inside the protocol. Why do you think the difference in resources required between the two is decisive? Your opinion sounds too strongly held to be defended this half-heartedly.
- jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  Ingressing the firehose is by far the easiest part. Here's someone doing it on a $4/mo VPS. Lots of other examples, many on slightly more expensive systems. Phil here also runs a public link indexer service for all Bluesky on a raspberry pi 4 ("Constellation")!! https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3mfkrfvy3ok2u https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ There's no other network where anything like this is remotely even possible today, much less at such tiny costs! And it turns out it's actually computationally not hard to do so much stuff! I ran into this really great thread from Henry Farrell on people who overly polarized themselves, who shut down being willing to hear anything else. https://bsky.app/profile/himself.bsky.social/post/3mgagtkjg7d2s https://bsky.app/profile/himself.bsky.social/post/3mgagtkjg7... Imo a good time to remember the old chant: "the only war that matters is the war against imagination; all other wars are subsumed by this war." A lot of totally closed people around HN parts. Atproto is one of the new favs for the shallow hate-brigade (alongside systemd, Linux audio, k8s).
  - deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
- wolvoleo 7mo ago
  It's more the parts they didn't make federated that hold it back in this regard. Maybe it's good for end users but that doesn't mean much if it can fall into the same enshittification trap as the others. Also, centralised moderation. I don't want to be dependent on an American company's moderation rules. There was an article here recently about someone who really tried setting up their own including a did:web and they ran into many problems. https://notes.nora.codes/atproto-again/ https://notes.nora.codes/atproto-again/ There's still many little centralised ties in bluesky and I doubt they'll ever relinquish control completely. Personally I like nostr a lot more, it seems to be more censorship-resistant and really decentralised.
- vvpan 7mo ago
  Everybody is saying that but that but here is Bryan Newbold running one on $34/month: https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lo7a2a4qxg2l https://whtwnd.com/bnewbold.net/3lo7a2a4qxg2l

pocksuppet 7mo ago

ActivityPub is a terrible protocol. The protocol isn't what the specs are, and there's not even a consensus de-facto spec beyond "what Mastodon does". Atproto is a bit better. Atproto is terrible at decentralization however, because of the model where data is stored decentrally, but accessed centrally, in big servers that need to be aware of all the data. In the ActivityPub model there isn't such a thing as "all the data" - you see what you see.

jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
That's, like, your opinion, man. I am proud of my data, in its many media-type/lexicon feeds (browse my PDS directly at https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:zjbq26wybii5ojoypkso2mso https://pdsls.dev/at://did:plc:zjbq26wybii5ojoypkso2mso), and I want people to know. I put my data on my PDS because it's good data and I believe that people contributing their "data" (sharing the world as they see it) is a democratic / open society virtue that makes the world better. When you can meaningfully index all the data on a rpi4, I think that's awesome. That makes a lot of people scared or mad, it evokes many of the things people don't like. But it also stems from only ever having seen or known that situation when the entire stack is under corporate control and when it's a mega-corp harvesting the data. From being in captivity. Not when it's one dude bad-example.com running a link indexer for the entire site on an rpi4, and you can too. We don't know what's that like: it's never been possible. https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ https://constellation.microcosm.blue/ There are legit reasons to have Fear Uncertainty and Doubt about atproto, and you don't have to have fun online. You are free to fuck off to less connected less online spaces if that's your bag. But I grew up wanting to be online and i still want to be online, and no service has ever actually done that before, not like this. This is dozens of times better than the next best thing as a distributed connected online system that I can be online with and that gives me the most freedom to build and use interesting neat new mini apps and tools, to be online with. To say that like it's a bad thing, is, to me, a joke. I acknowledge your values differ, and respect your decision, but it seems so weird to not want to have fun being online, to get better at it, to make more nodes on the noospheric graph, and to made more edges between them. That still feels like the right choice for me, and it's never been tried socially, and I think it has potential to let humanity keep improving in radical ways. In contrast, renouncing the connected feels like a bad dumb move. But enjoy!! GL;HF.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago

I lean the same way. I signed up with an alias and got instantly banned. Their support also drops certain alias emails, so there's no way to appeal. A "decentralized" network that locks you out for using basic email privacy tooling, with zero recourse, is centralized where it counts.

minitech 7mo ago
Not that that isn’t a practical concern, but that’s not the level at which the network claims to be decentralized. Your account was banned by one participant in the hypothetical decentralized network.
- 8cvor6j844qw_d6 7mo ago
  Agreed, in theory all participants are equal and being banned by one participant shouldn't lock you out of a decentralized network. In practice, the vast majority of handles (98.9% as of 2024) are under bsky.social [1]. Yes, alternative PDS providers exist, but if the default onboarding funnels everyone into one provider, and the average user doesn't even know what a PDS is, then decentralization is an implementation detail, not a user-facing reality. [1]: https://arxiv.org/html/2408.12449 https://arxiv.org/html/2408.12449
OneDeuxTriSeiGo 7mo ago
That's just the bluesky PBLLC PDS that banned you or refused to register you. You can create an account with any email address you want if you host your own PDS or you can find another PDS that someone else hosts that is willing to register you an account. One participant's new account spam protection has nothing to do with the network at large being centralised
- RobotToaster 7mo ago
  You're still reliant on the centralised bluesky BGS.
  - 7mo ago