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When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

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Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#41

Post by half-kh-hacker »

verdverm wrote: post #12
xrisk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What reason does Bluesky give for not opening up their AppView code? Another notable component that is closed source is the discovery feed generator, where at least there is some reason.

The App View frontend is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app Much of the backend is open source as well: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages What is not are the extra services they run to provide a better and faster UX. Even if it was open source, it likely costs 10s of thousands to run per month (they have moved largely to "onprem" hardware instead of the cloud aiui)

that's not the appview, that's the client

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#43

Post by ddejohn »

glerk wrote: post #22
dang wrote: post #9

[stub for offtopicness]

[flagged]

This is such a lazy, uninformed take that people just love to repeat. 1) the left on Bluesky is full of in-fighting because neolib left are convinced that Harris lost because of racism/sexism and the progressive left spend a lot of their time trying to educate (and dunk on) them for their braindead takes, and 2) any social media platform will become an echo chamber if you only choose to follow people that echo your sentiments. As long as Bluesky isn't actively censoring and suspending journalists and other public figures, there is no equivalence to Truthsocial or X and only a clown/shill/psyop would suggest as much.

It's really not that hard to find enriching content from all walks of life on Bluesky -- if somebody can't find it, they just suck at the internet.

To be clear, I do have grievances with Bluesky, and I do not have high hopes for its future -- but that's because I personally believe that social media in general is both fatally flawed from the start and detrimental to society, and will never not devolve into ad-riddled or otherwise enshittified services. I am not a Bluesky shill, I'm just here to call out the silly false equivalence with Truthsocial, etc.

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#44

Post by verdverm »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #27
verdverm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that it is "better" but that the choice is individual, not up to the mastodon server. In Mastodon, you trade Elon for some other group of individuals, so what happens if they make decision on moderation or content you do not agree with? ATProto is designed around accounts that are independent of data host, application, and moderation, all in the name of giving users individual control over these things. It's…

Are you suggesting the "big few" can't largely censor a given account? I don't see how ATProto is doing noticeably better than the scenario where a large ActivityPub instance blocks your external account.

Generally, yes. Currently, because Bluesky requires the use of their labeler if you use their app, this could happen.

Two points of note

1. You can participate in Bluesky without the Bluesky app, so you can remove this requirement by using an alternative app

2. The most blocked account is blocked by around 0.25% of the full network (https://clearsky.app/)

This second point does not account for users banned from Bluesky by Bluesky for breaking the ToS or PDS abuse.

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#45

Post by nightpool »

verdverm wrote: post #35
nightpool wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the frontend code, it doesn't include the backend API services, which are closed source.

Which is what I said in the second sentence

AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view, you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#47

Post by verdverm »

half-kh-hacker wrote: post #41
verdverm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App View frontend is open source: https://github.com/bluesky-social/social-app Much of the backend is open source as well: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/main/packages What is not are the extra services they run to provide a better and faster UX. Even if it was open source, it likely costs 10s of thousands to run per month (they have moved largely to "onprem" hardware instead of the cloud aiui)

that's not the appview, that's the client

App View is a bit fuzzy of a term. To me it seems like a combination of frontend, backend, custom lexicon, and supporting services. There isn't really another place in the spec or design where clients or browsers fit in, which do in fact provide a view of the network via an app.

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#48

Post by verdverm »

nightpool wrote: post #45
verdverm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is what I said in the second sentence

AppView is a specific term of art within the Bluesky federation architecture: https://atproto.com/guides/glossary#app-view , you were incorrect in identifying the public frontend repo as the AppView.

A frontend is (can be) part of an App View. It is quite literally the app you view the network through. There can also be headless app views and app views which have no backend

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#49

Post by jandrese »

gkoberger wrote: post #31
autobodie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. The profit motive is the root of most evil. It is a shame that so many are trained to believe it is the only motive available.

I completely agree with this... but without profit, people can't get paid, and they'll stop building. I do hate this incredibly need for growth, of course, but financial growth is necessary to pay people and give them raises and allow them to have upward mobility at the company. I hope Bluesky is able to find a model that works for them AND for consumers. (I do know it's an open protocol, so it'll live on without Blu…

At the same time I feel like a lot of companies grow much larger than they need to be simply because of bigger is better mentality. How many of Uber's 30,000ish employees are involved with making sure the app and backend database are working properly? Are they really doing 600 times more work than Craigslist at connecting sellers with buyers?

Re: When imperfect systems are good: Bluesky's lossy timelines

#50

Post by psionides »

nightpool wrote: post #25
haileyok wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Third party PDSes are fully supported by our app view, and our app view generates timelines for all the users on those PDSes.

What does this have to do with third party app views?

You didn't specify what kind of federated servers you were thinking about
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