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Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

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Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#141

Post by jrm4 »

Bluesky's claims to why they're better than anything always sound like crazy pill stuff to me.

Other services both centralize identity AND algorithms/operations.

This seems to centralize identity WITHOUT the second thing, which strikes me as the worst of both worlds.

It's just, we've already mostly "solved" the centralized identity problem with EMAIL. As often, the key is "fail elegantly," not be bulletproof. Email, in it's federated state, allows for individuals to more or less choose what kind of centralization they want -- and more importantly, to kill and restart accounts if needed. Thus, Mastodon is the best parallel.

What am I missing? What is the advantage of bluesky here?

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#142

Post by relaxing »

jrm4 wrote: post #141

Bluesky's claims to why they're better than anything always sound like crazy pill stuff to me. Other services both centralize identity AND algorithms/operations. This seems to centralize identity WITHOUT the second thing, which strikes me as the worst of both worlds. It's just, we've already mostly "solved" the centralized identity problem with EMAIL. As often, the key is "fail elegantly," not be bulletproof. Email,…

> What is the advantage of bluesky here?

Fewer Nazis.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#143

Post by relaxing »

Kye wrote: post #138
j_maffe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating my comment here because some people are deliberately stick manning this argument: > In the context of social media, people mean highly optimized algorithms for maximum retention.

I don't know what "stick manning" is and I don't appreciate the claim I'm doing it deliberately when I don't even know what it is. Don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is some insincere agitator who's hip to whatever weird debate shibboleths you've glommed on to. I was simply informing you that: * Chronological is an algorithm * It, like all ways of sorting feeds, has its own controversies

Making obtuse, pedantic statements makes you seem like an insincere agitator.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#144

Post by Matl »

dartos wrote: post #135
Matl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For DID PLC, the likely solution is to move the registry into a nonprofit which will maintain it, similar to ICANN. ICANN is rather centralized. This is the biggest concern I have with ATProto, I would have expected it to work over P2P i.e. IPNS, or even some sort of a blockchain rather than a centralized web server.

I central authority with escape hatches is okay, I think. One could start their own DNS server with different records than the ICANN ones, thus ignoring their authority. As long as that possibility exists, it’s fine.

The problem being that once that single authority becomes 'the standard' getting anyone to switch/use any alternative becomes almost impossible

There are many alternatives to (ICANN) DNS, but since none have support built into major browsers, they end up being a pain to use, which hampers adoption.

The most successful is probably the Onion network and that's far from mainstream.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#145

Post by apitman »

steveklabnik wrote: post #118
Matl wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If mastodon.social shuts down tomorrow, my own instance continues to operate fully independently. For PDS is that true? If bsky.app shuts down, will my PDS be able to function as an independent instance incl the web frontend etc.?

A PDS is an independent data store of everything you’ve done with atproto. If bsky.app shuts down, and you’ve self hosted your PDS (or created one and migrated your records over by replaying them from the network) you could spin up your own copy of bsky and continue on as normal.

The main caveat to this currently is that someone would have to run an alternative to https://plc.directory, and everyone else would have to agree which one to switch to. I'll be a lot more comfortable with atproto once the directory has moved to a non profit like ICANN (as @pfraze mentions), or a different DID method gains wide adoption.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#146

Post by apitman »

To date decentralization is inversely correlated to good UX.

* nostr is very decentralized (keys) and has terrible UX (manual management of keys).

* Mastodon is medium decentralized (dependence on DNS; can't migrate accounts) and has bad UX (confusion about which instance to use; "Take Me Home" to interact with anything).

* Bluesky (atproto) is moderately decentralized (did:plc) and has great UX.

The main advantage that atproto has over the other two is that if someone solves the did:plc problem, it can become the first very decentralized/great UX social media platform over night.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#147

Post by Kye »

relaxing wrote: post #143
Kye wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what "stick manning" is and I don't appreciate the claim I'm doing it deliberately when I don't even know what it is. Don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is some insincere agitator who's hip to whatever weird debate shibboleths you've glommed on to. I was simply informing you that: * Chronological is an algorithm * It, like all ways of sorting feeds, has its own controversies

Making obtuse, pedantic statements makes you seem like an insincere agitator.

So let's review.

pxoe: points out Mastodon has an algorithm

cuu507: says the news feed is chronological

me: reasonably inferring this means cuu507 isn't aware this is also an algorithim, I point out that it is, and that chronological feeds are also not without detractors with good arguments.

j_maffe: jumps up my ass from out of nowhere for some reason. I replied assuming they were the person I replied to (cuu507) since I don't really notice user names but no, they're just some random person on a mission to spread a quote.

I'm clear on things and am sure that I'm being sincere, not being pedantic, not agitating (on purpose), not being obtuse. I don't know what j_maffe's deal is since I said nothing to them before all this.

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#148

Post by jrm4 »

relaxing wrote: post #142
jrm4 wrote: post #141

Bluesky's claims to why they're better than anything always sound like crazy pill stuff to me. Other services both centralize identity AND algorithms/operations. This seems to centralize identity WITHOUT the second thing, which strikes me as the worst of both worlds. It's just, we've already mostly "solved" the centralized identity problem with EMAIL. As often, the key is "fail elegantly," not be bulletproof. Email,…

> What is the advantage of bluesky here? Fewer Nazis.

Yeah, this is another issue entirely, but also very often wrong and misses the point.

Roughly, e.g. -- Twitter (nope not calling it X) is still overwhelmingly the most useful and productive place for Black+US Politics discussion. Despite, or even perhaps because of, the presence of bad guys.

The thing I hate the most about Mastodon (despite being the right model) is people trying to make it nice, but end up making it STERILE. The left leaning folks, who politically I generally strongly agree with, really do overdo it in terms of "shutting down disagreeable speech."

(Bluesky is similar to Mastodon here)

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#149

Post by [deleted] »

kristo wrote: post #40
pfraze wrote: post #3

Read this: https://atproto.com/articles/atproto-for-distsys-engineers AT Protocol works like the Web, where each user is a website and each application is a search engine. The apps crawl the network of hosts and aggregate activity. We have over 100 outside hosts and at least 3 aggregating apps out there. It’s a different model than ActivityPub, which is more akin to email. We never said no algorithm. I don’t know whe…

I don’t understand what the naysayers want? They want an app that is decentralized, completely free, uses nothing remotely related to crypto, doesn’t serve ads, and where it starts day 1 with a robust ecosystem of applications using it. These people are just winging for followers IMO.

[deleted]

Re: Bluesky Is Not Decentralized

#150

Post by evbogue »

selecsosi wrote: post #134
evbogue wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course Bluesky is federated. The hosts hold onto your keypairs. The DID:PLC is a substring of your first hash. For those of you who are interested in solving this my first suggestion is to read the Scuttlebot docs which are still up at: https://scuttlebot.io/ Sometimes I think about a retro Scuttlebot revival. If you want to set sail on this kind of project, contact info is in my bio.

Always liked the ssb protocol and had an account but am just not much of a poster to ever add much value. Appreciate the design and open build process. Been following for a long time, hope you are doing well

Thanks! I'm well. Yes, Scuttlebot's offline-firstness and the friend of a friend replication strategy were ahead of their time.
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