4 ms·

I'm one of those "is it decentralized yet" people and to me the real concern is the AppView since I assume that's where censorship would be applied if it ever h

by wmf 4mo ago

I'm one of those "is it decentralized yet" people and to me the real concern is the AppView since I assume that's where censorship would be applied if it ever happens. People keep telling me about PDSes but I don't care about controlling my PDS if other people can't see my posts.

palata 4mo ago
> I don't care about controlling my PDS if other people can't see my posts. Isn't that similar with Mastodon? Someone on an instance that does not federate with yours will not see your posts, and I guess someone on an instance that would censor you would not see your posts? That someone would have to change instance if they disagree with the moderation, and doing so is more painful with ActivityPub than with ATProto, right? Disclaimer: I have no skin in this game, I don't use social networks. Just interested technically :-).
- nrabulinski 4mo ago
  It’s not more painful because there’s plenty of alternatives for activitypub instances, but only one bluesky. And you’re meant to either host your own instance, or pick one that aligns with your views and interests, such that the bulk of moderation is handled for you in terms of which instances you federate with etc.
  - chokolad 4mo ago
    > It’s not more painful because there’s plenty of alternatives for activitypub instances, but only one bluesky. No, there is not. There is blacksky, northsky, eurosky. They all display the data from your PDS.
    - kuschku 4mo ago
      I'm already running my own RSS reader, Matrix server, Mastodon instance, etc. How do I run my own appview? They surely have a git repo, docker images and helm chart, right? And if I can't self-host it, surely every local computer club should be able to, as they are with all the other protocols?
      - danabramov 4mo ago
        You can trivially host an appview for your atproto app on your own. I have a hobby atproto app, and I host an appview for it. I mean — an “appview” literally just means “a server with a database that ingests stuff from the network”. It’s not some mysterious thing or some concrete distribution. It just means you’re aggregating stuff into your database. It’s just as cheap as hosting any webapp. But what you’re asking is not that. You seem to be saying “I want to host my own Bluesky appview”. That’s resource-intensive for the same reason “I want to host my own Twitter backend” is expensive. It has nothing to do with the protocol! If you want to host a database application server that stores gigabytes of data from millions of users forever, you’re gonna have to pay for that. This isn’t some kind of gotcha with the protocol, it’s just common sense. That’s the “instance brain” from my article. You’re used to the shape where the only thing you can host is a “isolated copy of the same app that only deals with a few users”. But that’s not the atproto topology! What atproto lets you host is the real thing. Like a second real Twitter app that “just works” with all existing users. That’s the value proposition here. Or — if you’re not actually in the mood to host a product with millions of users — you can make your own app that has nothing to do with Bluesky. And of course your own app aggregating its own data would be cheap to host because it won’t be aggregating millions of records. Do you see the disconnect? Atproto allows competition at big scale — actually forking real products — which AP doesn’t do in principle. But you’re using this ability as a knock again atproto. Atproto scales arbitrarily up, so you take the highest scaled up example you can think of (Bluesky app with all its users and posts) and compare it to the cost of running the most scaled down version of AP (an isolated app for some people). To make the comparison fair, we’d need to scale atproto down in your example. You can definitely achieve scale identical to Mastodon (and thus identical in costs) by taking the Bluesky app server and adding custom logic which ignores all events that aren’t relevant to some hardcoded lists of users (your “member list”) or people they follow. That would be an accurate comparison, and yes, you could totally host that. People don’t do that because it’s kinda niche. Maybe it would be nice if there were ready-to-go distributions of Bluesky appview that do this kind of filtering. But also — it’s just kind of a non-goal for most developers on the platform. Most developers create their own different apps, rather than host alternate projections of the Bluesky content of the whole world.
- inigyou 4mo ago
  Other people use many different mastodon servers but all bluesky users use bluesky
miki123211 4mo ago
The difference between Bsky and Mastodon is that Bsky unbundles PDSes and App Views, while Mastodon does not. Migrating to a different App View should be painless in theory (app views are not supposed to collect any state that is not saved in the PDS, not sure if Bsky does or not), and you can use multiple app views with one PDS. On Mastodon, you have to migrate both at the same time, and moving content across instances is not yet a fully solved problem.
- kuschku 4mo ago
  The difference between the two is that Bluesky has a central audience with decentralized content, while Mastodon has a federated audience with federated content. Blueksy holds all the power, while the users hold none, whereas with Mastodon has many separate communities, similar to the old-school BBSes, forums, IRC and teamspeak servers.
danabramov 4mo ago
I wouldn’t say censorship alone is the primary motivation here so I’m a bit wary when people bring it up. But the way to think about it is that your data being on PDS is the mechanism that creates a market opportunity for other apps that, among other things, differ in moderation strategies. Concrete example: Bluesky banned a person, and Blacksky community disagreed with that ban. When Blacksky switched http://blacksky.community http://blacksky.community app to have its own complete stack (including its own database), that person’s posts became visible there (despite them being banned on Bluesky app) because they reversed that moderation decision. This was possible because the data for this person’s posts still lives on their PDS. In general, the data being “pulled outside” products is what enables new products (or forks of products) to come onto the scene and immediately begin competing because they don’t have to solve the “cold start” problem. If you log in, all your stuff is “already there”. And it’s the same shared world so the community doesn’t get forked. You’re just looking at the same underlying data under a different lens, and products act like lenses rather than boxes. This doesn’t mean that “censorship” can’t exist (every layer can ban you, as always) — but it means that every layer of the stack has opportunity for competition that isn’t possible with centralized platforms. In fact, arguably, it’s more flexible than a Mastodon instance because you can’t fork a Mastodon instance “with all its users” and offer a version that reverses some moderation decision. In atproto, you can.
- hack1312 4mo ago
  Does Blacksky have its own DID system, are they using did:web, or do they rely on blue sky’s did:plc? iiuc did:plc is what allows people to change their handle/use custom domains with the same account, but only Bluesky offers or can run did:plc, everyone else who wants to run their own full stack themselves is relegated to did:web which essentially has the same restrictions as ActivityPub where your account is tied to the domain hosting the DID.
  - tancop 4mo ago
    > only Bluesky offers or can run did:plc PLC is set up in a way where the database is fully visible and exportable. any censorship would show up in logs. if bluesky ever pulls it off at least part the community will stop trusting them, start their own server and patch apps to use the new domain. i know its not that easy in practice but its possible because everything is open source. > ...your account is tied to the domain hosting the DID thats nothing like the activitypub model. the atproto equivalent of an instance is your PDS which is something most users dont self host. did:web is not bound to a PDS, it uses a domain you own and a static https server you probably already have to host one file in `.well-known`. the risk of losing your account is much lower because someone would have to steal your domain or vps. theres no admin who can take it away.

by wmf 4mo ago

palata 4mo ago

> I don't care about controlling my PDS if other people can't see my posts. Isn't that similar with Mastodon? Someone on an instance that does not federate with yours will not see your posts, and I guess someone on an instance that would censor you would not see your posts? That someone would have to change instance if they disagree with the moderation, and doing so is more painful with ActivityPub than with ATProto, right? Disclaimer: I have no skin in this game, I don't use social networks. Just interested technically :-).

nrabulinski 4mo ago
It’s not more painful because there’s plenty of alternatives for activitypub instances, but only one bluesky. And you’re meant to either host your own instance, or pick one that aligns with your views and interests, such that the bulk of moderation is handled for you in terms of which instances you federate with etc.
- chokolad 4mo ago
  > It’s not more painful because there’s plenty of alternatives for activitypub instances, but only one bluesky. No, there is not. There is blacksky, northsky, eurosky. They all display the data from your PDS.
  - kuschku 4mo ago
    I'm already running my own RSS reader, Matrix server, Mastodon instance, etc. How do I run my own appview? They surely have a git repo, docker images and helm chart, right? And if I can't self-host it, surely every local computer club should be able to, as they are with all the other protocols?
    - danabramov 4mo ago
      You can trivially host an appview for your atproto app on your own. I have a hobby atproto app, and I host an appview for it. I mean — an “appview” literally just means “a server with a database that ingests stuff from the network”. It’s not some mysterious thing or some concrete distribution. It just means you’re aggregating stuff into your database. It’s just as cheap as hosting any webapp. But what you’re asking is not that. You seem to be saying “I want to host my own Bluesky appview”. That’s resource-intensive for the same reason “I want to host my own Twitter backend” is expensive. It has nothing to do with the protocol! If you want to host a database application server that stores gigabytes of data from millions of users forever, you’re gonna have to pay for that. This isn’t some kind of gotcha with the protocol, it’s just common sense. That’s the “instance brain” from my article. You’re used to the shape where the only thing you can host is a “isolated copy of the same app that only deals with a few users”. But that’s not the atproto topology! What atproto lets you host is the real thing. Like a second real Twitter app that “just works” with all existing users. That’s the value proposition here. Or — if you’re not actually in the mood to host a product with millions of users — you can make your own app that has nothing to do with Bluesky. And of course your own app aggregating its own data would be cheap to host because it won’t be aggregating millions of records. Do you see the disconnect? Atproto allows competition at big scale — actually forking real products — which AP doesn’t do in principle. But you’re using this ability as a knock again atproto. Atproto scales arbitrarily up, so you take the highest scaled up example you can think of (Bluesky app with all its users and posts) and compare it to the cost of running the most scaled down version of AP (an isolated app for some people). To make the comparison fair, we’d need to scale atproto down in your example. You can definitely achieve scale identical to Mastodon (and thus identical in costs) by taking the Bluesky app server and adding custom logic which ignores all events that aren’t relevant to some hardcoded lists of users (your “member list”) or people they follow. That would be an accurate comparison, and yes, you could totally host that. People don’t do that because it’s kinda niche. Maybe it would be nice if there were ready-to-go distributions of Bluesky appview that do this kind of filtering. But also — it’s just kind of a non-goal for most developers on the platform. Most developers create their own different apps, rather than host alternate projections of the Bluesky content of the whole world.
inigyou 4mo ago
Other people use many different mastodon servers but all bluesky users use bluesky

miki123211 4mo ago

The difference between Bsky and Mastodon is that Bsky unbundles PDSes and App Views, while Mastodon does not. Migrating to a different App View should be painless in theory (app views are not supposed to collect any state that is not saved in the PDS, not sure if Bsky does or not), and you can use multiple app views with one PDS. On Mastodon, you have to migrate both at the same time, and moving content across instances is not yet a fully solved problem.

kuschku 4mo ago
The difference between the two is that Bluesky has a central audience with decentralized content, while Mastodon has a federated audience with federated content. Blueksy holds all the power, while the users hold none, whereas with Mastodon has many separate communities, similar to the old-school BBSes, forums, IRC and teamspeak servers.

danabramov 4mo ago

I wouldn’t say censorship alone is the primary motivation here so I’m a bit wary when people bring it up. But the way to think about it is that your data being on PDS is the mechanism that creates a market opportunity for other apps that, among other things, differ in moderation strategies. Concrete example: Bluesky banned a person, and Blacksky community disagreed with that ban. When Blacksky switched http://blacksky.community http://blacksky.community app to have its own complete stack (including its own database), that person’s posts became visible there (despite them being banned on Bluesky app) because they reversed that moderation decision. This was possible because the data for this person’s posts still lives on their PDS. In general, the data being “pulled outside” products is what enables new products (or forks of products) to come onto the scene and immediately begin competing because they don’t have to solve the “cold start” problem. If you log in, all your stuff is “already there”. And it’s the same shared world so the community doesn’t get forked. You’re just looking at the same underlying data under a different lens, and products act like lenses rather than boxes. This doesn’t mean that “censorship” can’t exist (every layer can ban you, as always) — but it means that every layer of the stack has opportunity for competition that isn’t possible with centralized platforms. In fact, arguably, it’s more flexible than a Mastodon instance because you can’t fork a Mastodon instance “with all its users” and offer a version that reverses some moderation decision. In atproto, you can.

hack1312 4mo ago
Does Blacksky have its own DID system, are they using did:web, or do they rely on blue sky’s did:plc? iiuc did:plc is what allows people to change their handle/use custom domains with the same account, but only Bluesky offers or can run did:plc, everyone else who wants to run their own full stack themselves is relegated to did:web which essentially has the same restrictions as ActivityPub where your account is tied to the domain hosting the DID.
- tancop 4mo ago
  > only Bluesky offers or can run did:plc PLC is set up in a way where the database is fully visible and exportable. any censorship would show up in logs. if bluesky ever pulls it off at least part the community will stop trusting them, start their own server and patch apps to use the new domain. i know its not that easy in practice but its possible because everything is open source. > ...your account is tied to the domain hosting the DID thats nothing like the activitypub model. the atproto equivalent of an instance is your PDS which is something most users dont self host. did:web is not bound to a PDS, it uses a domain you own and a static https server you probably already have to host one file in `.well-known`. the risk of losing your account is much lower because someone would have to steal your domain or vps. theres no admin who can take it away.