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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 "decent

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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
  You're still reliant on the centralised bluesky BGS.
  - OneDeuxTriSeiGo 8mo ago
    Only if you choose to use bluesky PBLLC's relays and it's super trivial to not do that. Plus you can run your own relay super cheaply. Side note: it hasn't been called BGS for a very long time. Nowadays they are just called relays and since sync 1.1 the cost for running a relay decreased by multiple orders of magnitude.
AlphaSite 8mo ago
The cool thing is you can host your own node with its own rules; you should host an anonymous server and you can set the rules.
habinero 8mo ago
[flagged]

minitech 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
You're still reliant on the centralised bluesky BGS.
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 8mo ago
  Only if you choose to use bluesky PBLLC's relays and it's super trivial to not do that. Plus you can run your own relay super cheaply. Side note: it hasn't been called BGS for a very long time. Nowadays they are just called relays and since sync 1.1 the cost for running a relay decreased by multiple orders of magnitude.

AlphaSite 8mo ago

The cool thing is you can host your own node with its own rules; you should host an anonymous server and you can set the rules.

habinero 8mo ago

[flagged]