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Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

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Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#41

Post by isodev »

threeseed wrote: post #8
colesantiago wrote: post #4

Unfortunately close to nobody on or has moved to Bluesky cares about it being decentralized, they just want another Twitter that just works. Most of the people on Bluesky that have moved are artists, academics, writers and creative folks that don't care about tech. If they did care about decentralization they would be all going to Mastodon right now, but there isn't any traction there in the millions.

Bluesky = 13m users, Mastodon = 9m users. Bluesky hasn't released what their DAU/MAUs are but Mastodon's aren't that bad. https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-24-2024-series-a https://mastodon-analytics.com

Can we actually count the number of instances and users on Mastodon (the fediverse)? I have alt accounts in at least two separate "bubbles" of servers that only federate with each other and wouldn't show up in stats like this.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#42

Post by kfrzcode »

colesantiago wrote: post #4

Unfortunately close to nobody on or has moved to Bluesky cares about it being decentralized, they just want another Twitter that just works. Most of the people on Bluesky that have moved are artists, academics, writers and creative folks that don't care about tech. If they did care about decentralization they would be all going to Mastodon right now, but there isn't any traction there in the millions.

X seems to be working quite well. Especially considering the significant reduction in overhead since Elon's purchase.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#43

Post by pxoe »

Mastodon is not decentralized, it's federated. It doesn't solve some of the problems that come with centralization, it just creates more entities that will have the same problems (being at will of a server). And funnily, it doesn't even solve data portability entirely (you can't actually move your posts). Mastodon's "decentralization" is even worse than a "theoretical promise" of one, cause it's a just marketing promise when it literally just does not work that way in some aspects. You're still "centralized" to whatever server you signed up on, still with caveats that an actual centralized service would have. It's better, but it's truly not all it's made out to be. Definitely not to the point where such sneer and kind of just, speculatively making shit up, wouldn't look just ironic.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#44

Post by gr__or »

I think there is an interesting piece to be written about how prone bsky is to being captured by a single entity. It would look at how the reality of PDS today is 99.9999% (not the actual number, but ballpark) bsky hosted, also true for the relay. Then it would outline EEE scenarios, their likelihoods and whether bksy is sufficiently decentralized to fend them off.

This post is not that and misses the mark for me.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#45

Post by benreesman »

It’s hard to imagine any upper bound on broken or useless or corrupt that would invalidate one more news feed.

The gates are open on Google Search shaping your information, on Meta shaping your fashion, on Amazon shaping your commercial instinct.

And on YC boosting tired legacies around AirBnB rather than contemporary realities like Garry “Die Motherfucker” Tan pimping Pear “ChatGPT that license” shit on X.

I’ve had a beer with Zuckerberg and one with Dorsey, I say it can’t get any worse.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#46

Post by pxoe »

its-summertime wrote: post #13

> BlueSky's big claim is [they have] "no algorithm". https://bsky.social/about/blog/3-30-2023-algorithmic-choice Over a year ago, a blog claiming the opposite > But the actual BlueSky app does not implement DIDs. It's called "did-placeholder" on their github. It's a stub. It's TBD. It's not a feature, it's a feature request. AFAIK People with did:web dids can make accounts and use bluesky > And guess who just bought…

what does have a "big claim" that they have "no algorithm" is mastodon, which says so on its joinmastodon.org page and in its instance blurb. which just so obviously could not even possibly be true.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#47

Post by rtpg »

pxoe wrote: post #43

Mastodon is not decentralized, it's federated. It doesn't solve some of the problems that come with centralization, it just creates more entities that will have the same problems (being at will of a server). And funnily, it doesn't even solve data portability entirely (you can't actually move your posts). Mastodon's "decentralization" is even worse than a "theoretical promise" of one, cause it's a just marketing prom…

"Being at will of a server" is always a problem, but with federation you can choose which server you are at the will of. You still need trust, but that trust can be chosen by you based off of your needs (and that trust can be placed in yourself). You're on a different part of the trust gradient.

Meanwhile there's a certain quality of service that can be obtained with "mere" federation that is much tougher for many decentralized strategies. The actual topology matters, but federation is a pretty decent model IMO! There's a reason that e-mail has been so useful as a system for so long!

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#48

Post by moffkalast »

I'm not sure how we can get the point that a centralized seamless UX experience is core to any platform though the thick skulls of people designing decentralized federated services.

Lemmy's active user number drops every month and as does Mastodon's by a lesser degree, both failing to get proper traction because they segment and wall off tiny gardens where nothing is happening, making sure that people waste time frequenting empty communities instead of merging it all together. Regardless of how the backend is handled, centralized or not, people need the same thing on the frontend. These valiant attempts at remaking popular sites for the people by the people are not only fighting every corporation that wants them gone as a concept but also their own dumb decisions, which will probably prove too much of a hurdle in the long run.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#49

Post by lifthrasiir »

rtpg wrote: post #47
pxoe wrote: post #43

Mastodon is not decentralized, it's federated. It doesn't solve some of the problems that come with centralization, it just creates more entities that will have the same problems (being at will of a server). And funnily, it doesn't even solve data portability entirely (you can't actually move your posts). Mastodon's "decentralization" is even worse than a "theoretical promise" of one, cause it's a just marketing prom…

"Being at will of a server" is always a problem, but with federation you can choose which server you are at the will of. You still need trust, but that trust can be chosen by you based off of your needs (and that trust can be placed in yourself). You're on a different part of the trust gradient. Meanwhile there's a certain quality of service that can be obtained with "mere" federation that is much tougher for many de…

And the federation also made the spam email problem a lot worse ;-)

Anyhow, federation should be seen as a part of specific strategy for decentralization; federation itself is not decentralization and cannot achieve it without more bits---like topological consideration. Many federated protocols tend to push those bits into the horizon and fail at scale when that horizon eventually approaches, while ATProto is at least explicitly constructed with eventual decentralization in the mind and seems to be fine for now. Mastodon will need to prove much more than ATProto in order to show that it's capable for eventual decentralization in contrast.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#50

Post by scirob »

People on mastodon are so toxic. I tried to contribute code and content was threatened with lawsuits by people who don't understand that their protocol is explicitly designed for open data
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