4 ms·

Yeah that's why Tangled didn't go with ActivityPub (Mastodon protocol) and went with ATproto instead, which is specifically built to solve that problem, so indi

by knotbin 5mo ago

Yeah that's why Tangled didn't go with ActivityPub (Mastodon protocol) and went with ATproto instead, which is specifically built to solve that problem, so individual servers are all aggregated by centralized AppViews (that anyone can host) that give a singular unified "view" of the network that is just as cohesive as a centralized network feels.

madamelic 5mo ago
Ah ok! Thanks for digging up info that I didn't go looking for myself. That's fantastic news.
class4behavior 5mo ago
ATProto simply ignores the need for decentralizing incentives on a human/community level. What we get is a sort of a "top-down" federation rather than a grass-roots one. Whoever invests in the infra ends up running a domain. I mean, practically no one is aware of any other ATPROTO provider other than Bluesky whereas the issue with AP is merely the lack of better implementations, so mastodon.social got the most attention and the hype died off with niche success.
- danabramov 5mo ago
  There’s no such thing as “running a domain” or “atproto provider” in atproto. You’re approaching it with a Mastodon/AP mindset and it doesn’t match that. In atproto, there’s two axes. One is hosting. Bluesky offers hosting but some people host on their own (it’s just a Docker container with sqlite), some on Cloudflare, some on community-hosted nodes like https://npmx.dev https://npmx.dev and https://selfhosted.social https://selfhosted.social. From app perspective it looks exactly the same way (unlike in Mastodon where “hosting” = “choosing a community”) and you can switch hosting anytime. Another axis is apps. Apps aggregate from data from all hosts. Bluesky is an app, Tangled is an app, Leaflet is an app, Wisp is an app, Semble is an app, and so on. Those can all aggregate over the same data (which enables cross-app interop) but they don’t have to (eg Bluesky doesn’t overlap with Tangled much except that Tangled can reuse Bluesky avatar on login). Generally you don’t have people running copies of the same app (as in Mastodon) which is why there aren’t many “blueskyes”. But when someone has an incentive, they can. (Eg Blacksky is a complete fork including server and DB, allowing their own moderation decisions over same data.) Similarly you can build your own app on top of distributed Tangled data. Hope that helps clarify why “atproto provider” as a concept doesn’t make sense. You have hosting, which is as distributed as you want, and you have apps, which anyone can make.
  - tardedmeme 5mo ago
    How does a new server discover other servers?
    - danabramov 5mo ago
      A new hosting provider can preemptively request known relays to crawl it. Or relays (or apps) can lazily discover it when the user hosted there tries to log in for the first time, or their data is linked to by a known user. It’s similar to the relationships between websites and search engines. Hosting providers don’t need to discover other hosting providers. Data only flows between hosting and apps; not between hosting and hosting or apps and apps.
  - vladms 5mo ago
    So does Bluesky app have control over what data it aggregates and can decide (without checking with a user) not to aggregate data from a host? I am trying to understand what are the implications for a user, and a bad scenario where one would disagree with an action of the app. And if the answer is "yes" then at least when someone "makes their own app" can they easily use "Bluesky hosts list" + add special extra hosts (or remove specific hosts) so that the app relies on the platform, with the exception the disagreement point?
    - danabramov 5mo ago
      Yes to both. An app can choose to ignore/ban some users (or even entire hosting servers if they’re specifically created for network abuse). This is similar to how any web app may choose to ignore POST requests from spammers. And yes, someone can decide to aggregate data themselves and provide an alternative app over same data with different moderation policies. In fact that’s already the case (Blacksky runs their own application server that mostly piggybacks on Bluesky moderation decisions but overrides some of them. There are also clients that ignore moderation altogether and show you the raw data from hosting.)
      - tardedmeme 5mo ago

by knotbin 5mo ago

madamelic 5mo ago

Ah ok! Thanks for digging up info that I didn't go looking for myself. That's fantastic news.

class4behavior 5mo ago

ATProto simply ignores the need for decentralizing incentives on a human/community level. What we get is a sort of a "top-down" federation rather than a grass-roots one. Whoever invests in the infra ends up running a domain. I mean, practically no one is aware of any other ATPROTO provider other than Bluesky whereas the issue with AP is merely the lack of better implementations, so mastodon.social got the most attention and the hype died off with niche success.

danabramov 5mo ago
There’s no such thing as “running a domain” or “atproto provider” in atproto. You’re approaching it with a Mastodon/AP mindset and it doesn’t match that. In atproto, there’s two axes. One is hosting. Bluesky offers hosting but some people host on their own (it’s just a Docker container with sqlite), some on Cloudflare, some on community-hosted nodes like https://npmx.dev https://npmx.dev and https://selfhosted.social https://selfhosted.social. From app perspective it looks exactly the same way (unlike in Mastodon where “hosting” = “choosing a community”) and you can switch hosting anytime. Another axis is apps. Apps aggregate from data from all hosts. Bluesky is an app, Tangled is an app, Leaflet is an app, Wisp is an app, Semble is an app, and so on. Those can all aggregate over the same data (which enables cross-app interop) but they don’t have to (eg Bluesky doesn’t overlap with Tangled much except that Tangled can reuse Bluesky avatar on login). Generally you don’t have people running copies of the same app (as in Mastodon) which is why there aren’t many “blueskyes”. But when someone has an incentive, they can. (Eg Blacksky is a complete fork including server and DB, allowing their own moderation decisions over same data.) Similarly you can build your own app on top of distributed Tangled data. Hope that helps clarify why “atproto provider” as a concept doesn’t make sense. You have hosting, which is as distributed as you want, and you have apps, which anyone can make.
- tardedmeme 5mo ago
  How does a new server discover other servers?
  - danabramov 5mo ago
    A new hosting provider can preemptively request known relays to crawl it. Or relays (or apps) can lazily discover it when the user hosted there tries to log in for the first time, or their data is linked to by a known user. It’s similar to the relationships between websites and search engines. Hosting providers don’t need to discover other hosting providers. Data only flows between hosting and apps; not between hosting and hosting or apps and apps.
- vladms 5mo ago
  So does Bluesky app have control over what data it aggregates and can decide (without checking with a user) not to aggregate data from a host? I am trying to understand what are the implications for a user, and a bad scenario where one would disagree with an action of the app. And if the answer is "yes" then at least when someone "makes their own app" can they easily use "Bluesky hosts list" + add special extra hosts (or remove specific hosts) so that the app relies on the platform, with the exception the disagreement point?
  - danabramov 5mo ago
    Yes to both. An app can choose to ignore/ban some users (or even entire hosting servers if they’re specifically created for network abuse). This is similar to how any web app may choose to ignore POST requests from spammers. And yes, someone can decide to aggregate data themselves and provide an alternative app over same data with different moderation policies. In fact that’s already the case (Blacksky runs their own application server that mostly piggybacks on Bluesky moderation decisions but overrides some of them. There are also clients that ignore moderation altogether and show you the raw data from hosting.)
    - tardedmeme 5mo ago